eyes and heart
by walkingonempty
Summary: All Sasuke wants to do his drink away his sorrows and angst in peace. Too bad pesky nuke-nin and attempted coups send him on a road-trip (top-secret mission) to Suna with that damned Kazekage and Hyuga pretty-boy. GaaNejiSasu, background NaruHina/LeeSaku. ON HIATUS.
1. ever after

**Don't know where this is going if it even ends up going anywhere at all, but here it is. AU-ish, loosely set after the Last (except Neji lives 'caus why not?), so there's going to be some background pairings of love-dovey NaruHina and awkward SasuSaku and unrequited NaruSasu. Probably going to be eventual GaaSasu, GaaNeji, or SasuNeji (or maybe all three, so be warned) if it keeps on going. That's it for now. Don't like; don't read. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. I'm not sure how OCC everyone is.**

**Warnings: Vague references to some dubious consent and (lots of) angst. Sasuke also has a dirty mouth. Kakashi is worried about suicidal Sasuke.**

"_You have the same eyes as I do… the eyes, filled with filled with hatred and death, that long for strength…just like mine… your eyes tell me how badly you wish to kill the one that put you through the hell called loneliness."_—Gaara no Sabaku

"_Eyes. Those damn eyes fucked me forever. We made love just looking at them."_—Charles Bukowski

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"You know the point of coming to a wedding to pay your respects to the bride and groom is defeated by no one knowing you're here, don't you?" Kakashi's bored drawl rang out.

Forcing back a scowl, since giving Kakashi any indication of his emotional state usually ended in a lecture, Sasuke settled for a grunt. He supposed he could spare a minute to wish the newly-wedded couple the very best, but he didn't want to disrupt on their very oh-so-apparent matrimonial bliss.

Sasuke shoved these thoughts aside and decided to get to the main reason behind his visit. There was no point wasting anyone's time with nostalgic get-togethers. It was nice to see Kakashi, though; it had been several months since he had last been in Konoha. It was not nice to see Kakashi when Kakashi was trying to be hands-on, however. That usually ended in disappointment on both ends. He had disappointed Kakashi enough for a hundred lifetimes.

"There were some dissatisfied factions pushing for a coup in Wind—near Suna. They claimed to be unhappy with the balance of power in the Alliance, saying that the Kazekage's love for Konoha is keeping him from taking Sand to its true heights," Sasuke ground out. At the very least, this would push Kakashi into Hokage-mode and out of Disapproving Parental Figure-mode. (Sasuke has had enough of that from his actual father while he was still living and Kakashi during the whole "destroy Konoha" debacle.)

"A coup? I haven't heard anything about that from Morino's reports."

"His reports are shit. Besides, I heard my information straight from the source."

Kakashi blinked and stared at him. Sasuke met his gaze for a few moments before ducking his head and continuing onwards.

"The coup was mainly being planned by a few minor lordlings in the Wind Daimyo's court. They seemed to think that stirring up disrest would shake the Daimyo's confidence in Suna and push him to rely on them instead for military support, increasing their own power and prestige. This attempt failed, though; I took care of it." Kakashi looked at Sasuke expectantly, but Sasuke gave him no response.

A muscle neck in Kakashi's throat twitched. "What is your source? How did you 'take care of it'? Words, words are important, Sasuke; you should use your words, especially in the case that you may have caused an international incident."

Though Sasuke knew that Kakashi was prematurely grey long before he was his teacher, Sasuke could almost see the gray hairs growing on Kakashi's head every time they talked. _Naruto really should hurry out of his honeymoon stage with his **beloved** Hinata and become Hokage already before the old man is completely over the hill. It's not even like Kakashi even wanted to be Hokage; Hinata is distracting Naruto from the goal he has had had since he was young and even more annoying and orange, _Sasuke thought sulkily.

Sasuke looked at the strained expression on Kakashi's face before elaborating out of pity. "One of the lordlings had a wife who was interested in and pursued me, telling me anything and everything to get me into her bed. _Pillow talk_, you know? Once I reciprocated, she thought that she was in love with me and confessed everything. I simply gathered information and sent the appropriate authorities everything that I knew. It may have helped a little once I told my _lover_"—Sasuke spat this word—"that her adoring husband may or may not have been seeing someone behind her back. Then, she may or may not gone to the Daimyo himself and told him everything out of spite." Sasuke did not mention the irony of the woman spurned having already spurned her husband since he did not think Kakashi would share the same black amusement he found from this.

Kakashi closed his eyes and let out the sigh he had been holding in. "So you were never engaged in any direct combat, or involved in any thing that could be interpreted…badly? Nothing that could prove to be bothersome later down the road?"

"I'm not fucking stupid, _sensei._ Who do you think has been sending what good intelligence reports you've gotten since Jiraiya died? Who do you think dealt with the aftermath of that group that who tried to revive Kaguya? I have the Daimyo's blessing for dealing with the mess, and to begin with, I had permission of the Daimyo to infiltrate the group of conspira—"

"But you did not have my permission or my knowledge of what you were doing, Sasuke. You did not inform the Kazekage that you were in Sand and dealing with hostile parties. You just send anonymous reports back here and expect to go traipsing through the Five Great Nations without a thought anyone or anything else. Teamwork and cooperation are important; I taught you to value them, Sasuke. You are not doing that. You are going off by yourself and ignoring those that can help you and need your help."

"But—"

"This is not me speaking as your sensei; this is me speaking as your Hokage. There are complaints about how light—or how nonexistent— your punishment was after the war. I know you, and I know that you have changed. Others don't; they say that while your motives and alliances are with us instead of against us, you are still the same as before. They say my emotions towards you are coloring my treatment of you. Maybe they are right. The last two years that you have spent 'finding yourself,' you have sent Konoha invaluable information. However, your actions in the name of defending Konoha have been reckless, and I haven't held you accountable. It's lucky that this last instance did not turn into a huge cluster-fuck. You cannot just stop a coup in another military nation without permission from that nation's military leader."

"I didn't think it was necess—"

"Obviously, you didn't think. You could have been killed if they thought you were collaborating with the conspirators in worst case, causing instability in Sand's alliance with us; in the best case, if you had been caught there without them knowing _why _you were there, you would have spent a few months in a prison cell before I had to fill out a mountain of paperwork to get you out." Kakashi paused. "Things turned out well, but this can't happen again. With the way you're acting, you're going to turn into another Tsunade and run around drunk for a few decades until Naruto beats some sense into you and drags you back here. Until I say so, you're confined to village 'til I figure out what to do with you and this. I expect a report and a draft of a formal letter of apology to the Kazekage by tomorrow morning."

Sasuke bite down the rage; he did not understand why Kakashi was so angry. Ever since his last fight with Naruto, he had tried so hard to be good and to protect Konoha. That was the right thing to do, wasn't it? Protect Konoha and all the petty, useless people in it. It's what Itachi would have wanted; it's what Itachi had died for. And here Kakashi was yelling at him for doing what was right. It's not like he had betrayed anyone or done anything that could have potentially hurt any of his teammates again. He didn't even engage any direct combat with any of the conspirators to avoid the complications that would ensue for using unauthorized physical violence in another nation. Hell, he had even spread his legs for that cold harpy of a woman and let her _touch_ him to keep one of Konoha's allies safe. Sasuke hated being touched, but he faked pleasure for Konoha's sake. Who knew all that time spent with Orochimaru would pay off in Konoha's favor?

Will he ever be able to look Kakashi again without the ever-present disapproval on his face? No, Sasuke decided, he won't; that was okay, though. With everything he has done, Sasuke knew that he deserved the disapproval. Sasuke took a deep breath to avoid the hysterical laugher bubbling in his stomach. One of his ribs gave him a twinge of pain_. Oh, I'd forgotten about that,_ Sasuke thought. During one of the last sessions with the woman, she had been rougher than usual and he did not feel like giving her the satisfaction of using his safe word. Afterwards, she would have tried to hold him and say sorry and how much she loved him. That made Sasuke angry. It was one thing to fake lust for a noblewoman's perversions in order to get information from her; it was another to pretend to listen to the farce of the thing she thought was a love declaration. It had been that way in Sound, too. Sasuke blinked slowly and (as per usual) pushed these thoughts away.

Kakashi's damn eyes were now looking at him very intently. Sasuke did not know how it was that even when Kakashi used to look at him with only one eye, it felt like the whole world was watching him. Now, with two eyes looking down on him, it was even worse. Sasuke decided to say nothing until Kakashi went away and left him alone; the empty feeling is better when Sasuke is alone. That way no one could look down on him with those damn disapproving eyes.

"Are you okay? Your ribs, they're hurt, aren't they?" Kakashi said.

Sasuke said nothing.

"Well, since you are obviously fine then, put on your people face. We're going to go to the last part of Naruto and Hinata's wedding, and you are going to smile. Then, you're going to go to the hospital and deal with Sakura worrying about your health."

Sasuke attempted to smile, but it came out like a strained grimace. Sasuke has never been very good at smiling. Or at least he hasn't been good at smiling that night his life went to shit.

"Never mind about the smile then. It looks like you have two broken ribs."

_Oh fuck_, Sasuke thought before following Kakashi out of his office.

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Kakashi has always known that he will probably never want to have children. This morning when he was calming down a frantic Naruto (who for some reason thought Hinata was going to get cold feet despite being in love with him for her whole life), this thought was reinforced. He was prouder now than he had ever been in his life, but damnit, his adorable baby genin were growing up. They were official adults now, and soon Naruto and Hinata were going to be making adorable baby genin of their own. The feeling this thought brought up was heart-warming but made him so sentimental and close to teary-eyed that it would ruin the "hip" reputation Guy has given him.

On the other hand, the feeling that he never wants to have children was doubly magnified with Sasuke. He never knew what that boy is thinking these days. There was a time when he did know what Sasuke was feeling, seeing a miniature of his younger self, but those days have been long gone for ages now. Even the slight micro-expressions Sasuke used to give are now absent, leaving a blank, broken slate of a young man. Some times Kakashi wanted to ask what was wrong, but he knew the only response is the bland, chalk-written word "fine" and the blanker slate of Sasuke's face. This was when Kakashi knew that his heart was broken. Sasuke was never like the old Obito, but now he looked like the broken, despairing Obito towards the end. The look on Sasuke's face was too similar to the look on Sakumo's face before Kakashi found him in a pool of his own blood. The kid had come so far from the angry, bitter person he had been; Kakashi is going to be damned if he lets the kid end it all doing something like that...

_I should have known that this finding "inner peace" thing was bullshit; the only thing Sasuke has been good at finding is trouble—even when he's trying not to. It's like he wants to die. At the very least, there's reason enough to keep the kid in Konoha now where we can keep an eye on him. I'm not going to lose him because of his own stupidity. Not when I can stop it—not again, _Kakashi thinks. He lost Obito and Sakumo because he had been too blind; he's not going to lose Sasuke to the big, bad world. Plus, confining him to Konoha will cut down on the bitching at the next Kage's meeting. And it would make Naruto happy, making a win-win situation for everyone.

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As Sasuke slipped into the room behind Kakashi, all eyes seemed to fall upon them. Sasuke did not need to look into the eyes to know what the minds behind those eyes were thinking.

_Traitor. Coward. Murderer. Liar. Family-killer. Traitor._

Not for the first time, Sasuke wondered how Naruto dealt with all the eyes upon him as a child with such grace. Whenever Sasuke felt those eyes land upon him, he felt the hate being shoved from the everyone else's eyes and into his own, forcing its way through his pupils and taking root in his brain. He knew the world thought that he was a monster, and despite his attempts at redemption, he was starting to think he is a monster as well. He wasn't like Naruto; he could not smile and turn the hate into a challenge to overcome and laugh in the face of it. Maybe he would turn into the monster the Kazekage—Gaara—was when he was younger. After all, the old Gaara said they had the same eyes. The eyes of loneliness that knew only of hate and rage. Sometimes Sasuke felt so hated and death-cursed these days that he wanted to rear up and tear up the eyes of all the people looking at him.

Sasuke ignored the eyes upon him and looked towards Naruto and Hinata. They were probably some of the few not looking at Sasuke (because they were looking at each other-how sweet). Hinata's silvery white eyes were staring into Naruto's sky-blue ones as though looking away would mean the world were ending. _I know that feeling_, Sasuke thought with a tinge of resentment; he cleared his throat. Better to get this ordeal over with; also, interrupting Naruto and Hinata's lovebeam-transmitting staring contest was a plus. Did they realize how emotional—how _obscene_—they appeared to an outside observer looking in? That intensity and depth of emotion was better bottled up inside and never let out; it was almost as if they were trying to hurt Sasuke by flaunting their love in his face. It would be easier to watch them fuck on the table like animals than to see them stare into each other's eyes like _that_. Annoyed, Sasuke did what he was best at and forced his emotions down and pulled out a smirk.

"So you finally found a woman willing to put up with you, dead-last?"

"Bastard! You're here; you actually came back! Wait—this doesn't mean I forgive you for last time. What the hell, man? Blowing up a meteoroid like a hero and then being all 'and now I must go'? We haven't heard from you in months. You've been worrying Sakura-chan sick, ya know…"

Foolish Naruto—Sakura as well— not forgiving him for that, but forgiving him for all his other sins. Sasuke did not understand them. He had never been able to forgive anyone or anything. Perhaps this was the reason he needed Naruto so much; Naruto was everything he could never be.

"Also, you're a dick for the last birthday present you sent. An orange frog night cap, which is _awesome_ by the way, with a note saying 'Knowing your tastes, you'd like this. Happy birthday, dead last"? You set my last night cap on fire; you don't give someone a birthday present that replaces something you already destroyed, asshole."

Sasuke decided to cut this rant off before Naruto got started full force and shoved a package in Naruto's hands.

"Open it, idiot."

Naruto opened it and stared at it for a moment.

"It was my mother's; my father gave it to her when they were married. I figured you would be stupid enough to forget to give one to Hinata, so here you go."

An awkward moment passed, and Naruto opened and closed his mouth. Sasuke glared at the ground and shoved his hands in his pockets. He hated sentiment, but he was expecting Naruto to be happy when he gave him this. Naruto loved Hinata, so he should be happy he had something to give her to show _how much_ he loved her, shouldn't he?

"But, Bastard, I can't take this. Shouldn't you give this to Sakura-chan?" Naruto trailed off uncertainly.

Sasuke glared even harder at ground as if it was the one causing his heart to be torn out right now. _Besides, why would I give it to Sakura. She cannot still think she loves me after everything that has happened, can she? Or maybe, she can…oh fuck_, Sasuke thought. Sakura was strong and brave and beautiful, but the thought of anyone loving him (or being unfortunate to think they loved someone like him) made Sasuke very uncomfortable.

Hinata finally spoke, giving him a slight bow and rescuing them from the awkward silence that seemed to swallow out everything now.

"Sasuke-kun, I want to thank you for this; it means a great deal to both of us. Sometimes, Naruto is not the best at saying what he feels; you are like a brother to him. I know that giving this ring to us must mean a great deal to you as well. You are our comrade and our family, and we can be your family, too, if you allow us."

Hinata's eyes met his own, and Sasuke was not sure if the genuine kindness and warmth he saw there made him feel any better. He did not know what to say, so he nodded and let out one of his fallback monosyllabic grunts.

Naruto suddenly laughed, breaking the tension, and slipped the ring on Hinata's finger. "Way to respond to a heart-felt speech, asshole, and, hell yes, you better prepare yourself for family dinners whenever you are in town. We're already coming up with the plans for a house next to the Hyuga compound, so you can even have your own fucking guest room."

"I'm sure Neji would love that," Sasuke drawled.

Naruto looked confused for a second before slinging his arm around Hinata, asking "Neji and Sasuke don't like each other?"

Hinata flushed delicately and brushed her hair out of her face, trying to think of the best way to phrase her response. On her finger, Sasuke's ring gleamed. Sasuke bit his lip to keep from screaming in anger. Hinata was pure and good, and Naruto was happy. That was all that mattered.

"I have to go," he snarled out before stalking to the open bar across the room.

As he left, he heard Naruto's yell of "Oi, bastard! Where do you think you're going?"

Glancing back, he saw Naruto's fallen expression and Hinata gently patting him on his shoulder.

_Whatever, if he asks later, I'll just tell him I was overcome by a bout of emotion. After all, isn't everyone supposed to cry at weddings?_

But then again, Sasuke never had been big on crying, so he just decided to get black-out drunk. His hangover the next morning should match how he was feeling right now.

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Sitting across from the Kazekage, Neji cursed the seating arrangements yet again. How was he supposed to converse with an important ally without deathly insulting him when said ally showed no expressions to gauge his emotions by? Neji was nothing if not prepared, and the Kazekage's non-reactions were an annoyance to him. He could tell the Kazekage was genuinely happy for Naruto and Hinata , but could not tell his thoughts on the new trade agreement that they were discussing. _It's almost as if I am talking to the traitor. They both have the emotional capacity of a rock_, he thought. _Well, at least the Kazekage is wise beyond his years and stopped being a homicidal psychopath—unlike the Uchiha. I can respect that and I can actually respect him as a person. _

This was actually rare for Neji. He was of the strict opinion that he would only give respect to those who deserved it and those who deserved it were few: Hiashi-sama, Hinata-sama, Gai-sensei and Lee occasionally (when they were not being idiotic), Tenten, and Naruto… The fact the Kazekage managed to fight the fate he once had accepted was something that Neji could identify with. Neji studied the man he was thinking about. Pale, blank face; paler green eyes. It was hard to tell what the Kazekage was thinking even for someone with eyes that saw everything like Neji…But now, there was actually something that Neji could identify on the Kazekage's face—a sort of darkening, an opening in the opaqueness that only let black through instead of light. What could cause such a reaction on a man like the Kazekage?

Neji followed the Kazekage's gaze. _Uchiha…I suppose that explains it. Well, that is another subject I identify with this man on. Kamis, I hate that traitor. He has no sense of honor, and I do not believe his half-hearted attempts at redemption. What sort of entitled bastard can stroll into the wedding of a man he tried to murder like he has the right to be among us?_

It was at that moment that Neji started sweating when he remembered he, too, was at the wedding of someone he had tried to kill. He had tried to change his ways and his thoughts towards the Main Family, but being completely honest with himself, he still felt trapped. He still hated seeing out of the bars of his cage with his all-seeing eyes and knowing that he would never be free. Would he go the same way as his father and only be able fly away free into the arms of Death? To protect Hinata or maybe Hiashi or Hanabi, he would do so, but for the rest of the Main Family, they could burn.

_Oh kamis, forgive me, I am not the man my father was…_

Making his excuses to the Kazekage, Neji got up and stalked to the bar. Well, if the Traitor could get raging drunk at a wedding, so could Neji. It appeared both of them were harboring traitorous thoughts tonight. The thought made Neji want so scream.


	2. turning tipsy

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of the characters; they belong to Masashi Kishimoto. I don't get any money from this. Also, for purposes of this story, let's assume Naruto and Sasuke both have both of their arms.**

**Warnings: Vague references to some dubious consent and underage and mentions of suicidal behaviors. Sasuke still has a dirty mouth and does not handle his alcohol well. Also there is probably going to be eventual GaaNejiSasu, NaruHina, and maybe Sakura x Happiness so don't read if that bothers you.**

Sasuke slammed down his shot glass. Two stools down, the girly-faced Hyuga slammed his down as well. Sasuke snarled. Who was Hyuga to intrude on his time alone? Sasuke had been good, kept the allies of the place of that got his family slaughtered safe, gotten yelled for that, made nice with dobe and his picture-perfect bride. Now, he was going to get completely and peacefully drunk, or he would try to do that if it weren't for the Hyuga burning a hole in his back. Well, to think of it, the whole room was burning a hole in his back. _Che, this is how Itachi must have felt_, he thought_, saving all these ungrateful shits and they hate you for it. Well, I guess I tried to kill most of them at one point or another. That was bad. I actually feel bad about that. Why the fuck am I feeling this? Make it stop. Kamis, I miss 'tachi._

With this, Sasuke decided to have another drink. This usually happened whenever he thought too deeply about his brother. Sasuke had thought that the anguish of Itachi would have hurt the worst when his heart stopped the moment Itachi's did the second time, but that wasn't true. Sasuke still had these phantom pains of Itachi that ached, throbbing through his body into his mind, his dreams, his _everything_. Itachi had said he would love him despite anything, but Sasuke knew that this wasn't true. Sasuke didn't deserve anyone's love, but for some reason people thought they loved him: Sakura, Kakashi…and Naruto, though not how Sasuke would like him to. Sasuke did not want people to care for him. All his life Sasuke had only hurt people. He had a war full of casualties to prove that. A war full of families killed just like his had been. Sasuke did not like the feeling of self-hatred this brought; Sasuke was used to hating others. He had never before hated himself. These days Sasuke was all too familiar with the feeling.

_Hell, the clan was killed so that I could live. Other families were killed when I worked with Orochimaru, with Tobi...Why? Why?_ Sasuke's hands trembled and he reached for yet another drink. To his surprise, though, something, or rather someone, stopped him. A handcuff of sand encircled his right wrist, keeping him from lifting his glass. Sasuke snarled. Why him?

"Fuck off and die," he bit out. (Sasuke's sluggish mind realized this was not good. He had already gotten a lecture from Kakashi once today about pissing off the Kazekage. Oh well. Sasuke had done worse and doubted Gaara would do anything to upset his precious Naruto.)

"You've had enough," Gaara said, tightening the sand around Sasuke's wrist.

_Blunt, simple, and to the point_. _He actually thinks I'm going to listen to him, too_. Sasuke found this hilarious. He reached for the drink with his left hand—a brilliant strategy, he was sure of. And Gaara thought he could outwit the Uchiha Sasuke. Sasuke had not been an S-rank missing nin for nothing.

A handcuff of sand trapped his left wrist. _Oh no, this, this is not good._ Sasuke stared slowly at his wrists. Maybe if he blasted a Chidori through his wrists? But then he couldn't make a scene at the dobe's wedding. Everyone already thought he is the worst. Plus, the room was spinning and he probably wouldn't be able to put up much of a fight. Sasuke perhaps should have listened to that lecture that Sakura gave him on the dangers of alcoholism and emotional strategies she had given him when he had gotten out of the hospital with Naruto.

"Uchiha, think. Others haven't noticed you drinking yet, but if you continue, they will. Do you really want to do that to Naruto and Hinata at their wedding? Now, stop," Gaara said. His eyes were impassive and the tone was bland, but the sand still held Sasuke's wrists down firmly.

Sasuke hated this about him. Whenever the Kazekage saw him, he always had this glint in his pale eyes—as if Sasuke was his prey and once he caught him he would never let him go. It made Sasuke feel uneasy and unsure of what Gaara wanted from him. For most people, Sasuke could read their faces pretty easily; he saw their hatred and disgust and reflected back a mirror image of what he saw in their faces with his face. Sasuke was good at this; he had been wearing a mask of disdain and apathy since he was a child. Gaara, though, looked through Sasuke's mask and beyond his eyes, peering into his heart and reducing Sasuke to his component flesh, bones, and skin. Sasuke could swear that Gaara even saw his thoughts flicker and spark across his brain as they were born. It seemed as though Gaara saw everything of him, but Sasuke saw nothing of Gaara in return.

Trying to determine what Gaara's thoughts were thinking made Sasuke's drunken mind hurt, so he decided to try a classic shinobi technique: deflection.

"Hyuga's almost as gone as I am. Why don't you annoy him instead?"

Gaara let out the slightest hiss of air through his nostrils. Sasuke smirked in delight. Gaara: three; Sasuke: one. But then the sand tightened even more around his wrists. The grains pressed roughly into the delicate skin of Sasuke's underarm, and he shuddered at the feeling. It hurt so good. Sasuke morbidly thought back for a second of the time Gaara had tried to crush him in his sand coffin. The adrenaline, the pain, the death…

"You will get up, leave without making a scene, and let Naruto and Hinata celebrate their wedding in peace. Do you or do you not understand?" The command was even, but Sasuke swore he heard an angry undercurrent to it.

"Why, of course, Kazekage-sama," he slurred. The sand finally released his wrists and Sasuke attempted a mocking bow but stumbled, ruining the effect.

"Do you need someone to escort you to where you are staying?"

"Why are you offering to go home with me? You haven't even bought me a drink yet," Sasuke murmured huskily tilting his head to the side. He lifted a freed hand to Gaara's face, running his forefinger down a pale cheek.

Gaara stiffened and turned at heel. Sasuke let out a laugh and strode out of the room in a wavering zig-zag. Straight lines were not his friends right now.

Sasuke had never particularly liked sex, but he was aware of how he looked—how even still people looked at him with lust mixed in with the hatred. He was a shinobi, and he was nothing but a weapon. Since he was a weapon, it was foolish to treat his body as anything but such. Ever since Orochimaru and Sound, Sasuke had used his body and his looks and how people craved him to their fullest extent. Contrary to what most people thought, Orochimaru had never touched Sasuke or any of the children he collected inappropriately, but he had been nothing but clinically detached and pragmatic when it came to letting them know that they were to do anything and everything possible to complete a mission. The consequences of failing were worse than the momentary discomfort of pleasuring a target for a mission. Besides, Sasuke was sure Orochimaru went through the same thing when he was child since he had always spoken a little too knowledgeably when instructing Sasuke on the best way to manipulate a mark. No one could be as pretty as people always claimed he and Orochimaru were and not have done same thing. It was the way of the world.

It was these lessons in particular Sasuke used now on Gaara. Sasuke knew that Gaara did not want him in particular, but Sasuke knew enough of lust and love unrequited to recognize the look on Gaara's face when he looked at Naruto. (It maybe is a little bit too satisfying for Sasuke to know that he isn't the only sucker in the room wearing that expression on his face). Knowing this, Sasuke would not hesitate to use it against the redhead. _Especially when he will not leave me the fuck alone. I need to be left alone. In the end that's my just deserts: being alone forever, trying to fix what can't be fixed._

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Gaara stalked away from the drunk Uchiha. Recently, in addition to the latest coup that Uchiha demolished (Gaara reminded himself to tell the Hokage to pull the reins in on the Uchiha. In the words of Shiikamaru, Sasuke was "troublesome."), there had been reports of possible assassination attempts by an emerging terrorist group modeled after the Akatsuki. Where it would strike, however, was anyone's guess. The chaos of Naruto's wedding, and with it the various well-wishers from all over the world, was as good a place as any for the enemy to strike. Gaara was already on edge from trying to calculate the most likely outcome in a problem with too many unknown variables. Adding in an Uchiha, and a drunk one and that, completely threw off all his computations. While Gaara doubted that Uchiha himself would try to stab him, he feared a repeat of what happened with the coup debacle. Instead of coming to him with his intelligence, Uchiha had gone to the Daimyo. Where Gaara could have orchestrated a plan in which all the conspirators and relevant information could have been found out, Uchiha and the Daimyo had laid an exploding tag of a trap that blew up anything that might be a threat and everything around it in the five mile blast radius. By the time that Gaara had heard of the coup, the Daimyo had executed all conspirators and even those marginally involved.

It had been a complete waste of life and what Gaara hated more than anything was waste for no reason. It brought back memories of the war that had not long passed. Now, thanks to Sasuke, Gaara had another problem to deal with. Sometimes Gaara just wondered if it would be better to lock up the Uchiha where he could not cause any trouble. This idea had some appeal; Gaara could almost imagine having the Uchiha locked away in a cage, just an arms-reach away and close enough to touch…Gaara stopped this train of thought suddenly. He had not had these urges since Naruto had shown him the light and Shukaku had been pushed into the darkness. He should not be thinking these thoughts…even if it was the Uchiha. (It's not like the Uchiha could be broken; his soul was as dark as Gaara's own). Uchiha Sasuke was Naruto's friend and someone who Naruto could transform into a light for the greater good, much as he did for Gaara himself. Anything else Gaara thought about the man was irrelevant as long as he wasn't intentionally risking the peace.

"Thank-you; I thought I was going to have to deal with him myself, Kazekage-sama," The low voice started Gaara out of his reverie. It was Hyuga—;it was some Hyuga Gaara knew, though he could not remember his name. He was…Rock Lee's teammate and the man he had been talking to earlier about some treaty or another. The man was a good fighter and yet another person who had been saved by Naruto.

"It was no difficulty on my part," Gaara agreed frantically scanning the room for Lee. The Leaf ninja was a stalwart friend and worthy sparring partner. Also, he could provide Gaara with his teammate's name. Gaara hated being caught unawares. When he caught sight of the glare of the green, he waved the taijutsu expert.

"Kazekage-sama! Eternal rival! Friends! What a wonderful celebration of youth! In honor of Hinata and Naruto, I propose a tournament of strength!" _Well, that tells me nothing about the Hyuga's name. Shame, he had some interesting ideas about border disputes with Rain._

"…and therefore, I propose a no-holds-barred battle in the middle of the dance floor."

"Lee, how much have you had to drink?" The words came out pinched from an extremely irate teammate.

"Why, Neji, I have only had ten glasses of the punch. Choji challenged me to an eating completion and I needed something to wash the food down. Nothing can be accomplished without full-out effort!" _So that's the name._

"Kazekage-sama, I apologize for my teammate's appearance right now. If I can just get him to our friend Tenten, she is usually best at handling him when he is like this."

Gaara tilted his head to the side. Well, apparently the Hyuga was clever but a stick-in-the-mud. It was when Lee was like this, unrestrained and youthful, that he was at his most brilliant, most pure. Other than Naruto, Gaara did not know anyone who showed their inside to the outside world as honestly as Lee did. He wondered what it would be like if the stoic Neji showed what he was thinking to the world…the thought intrigued Gaara. It was the icy ones that always surprised Gaara with what their frozen waters revealed as they finally melted in the warmth of spring.

"There is nothing to apologize for, Hyuga-san. I'll look after Lee. Could you perhaps follow Uchiha Sasuke home? He left just a little while ago and seemed a bit impaired." _I'd rather deal with Lee than the Uchiha any day...and Temari said this would be a relaxing vacation. I should have known she only wanted to flirt with Nara..._

Neji's smile tightened slightly, but he gave a courteous bow, brown hair falling to form a curtain around his pale eyes. "Hai, Kazekage-sama."

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Sasuke faked a stumble down the street. Someone was following him, or more correctly, some numerous people were following him. From what he could determine, it wasn't ANBU; he had enough experience detecting their presence seeing as nowadays they always seemed to follow him whenever he was back in Konoha. When Sasuke heard feet land almost soundlessly in front of him, he was ready, darting as quickly as a snake to pull a kunai to his pursuer's throat.

Then, he was actually stumbling—not faking one this time—and falling to empty the contents of his stomach at the figure's feet.

"Lovely."

_Oh shit. It would be Hyuga fucking Neji_.

It went without saying that Sasuke and Neji did not get along. Kakashi put it down to them being from clans whose rivalry went back centuries. Sakura delicately put it from them having "similar dispositions." Either way, the two prodigies, simply put, hated each other's guts. Sasuke thought the Hyuga was a coward who looked down upon him for trying to fix things (though admittedly Sasuke really fucking hated how he went about how he tried to fix things now) while he was too afraid to escape from what he accepted to be his fate. Sai, Sasuke's inferior replacement, once told him that Hyuga said Sasuke was a lying, murdering traitor whose only aim was destruction. _I may be a murderer, traitor, worst of the fucking worst. I just want to…to make things better though. If the Alliance said I should die, I'd die like Itachi would have. But they haven't told me to die. I don't deserve to die and escape the bad I've caused like some coward; I fucking get that and I can't change that. But I've never lied, never. My mother taught me better than that. I'm going to do something, somehow._

These thoughts swirl on the tip of Sasuke's tongue, trying to fall out to form words, but all he can taste is the bitterness of his own puke. Oh, if only his father and brother could see him now.

Somehow, miraculously, Neji said nothing and pulled Sasuke to his feet, giving him a shoulder to lean on.

"Why?"

"Because Hinata-sama would be upset if you drowned in your own filth. Besides, if the Hokage thinks someone such as you can be of use, it would not do to for my own _personal feelings"_ –here Neji sneered—"to cause me to leave you here like this to dir. It's called loyalty the village—something I doubt you know of."

Sasuke was about to reply when he realized the other presences he detected from before were still following them. He started the hand-sign he used with Taka to indicate an enemy was present before he realized that Neji did not know it. Well, then, he would just deal with this on his own then.

xxxxxxxxxxx

When Neji had left the wedding, he had not been sure whether to be glad he did not have to wrestle a drunken Lee into submission or annoyed that he had to corral drunken Uchiha home. He decided to be annoyed since there was a greater chance of injury when confronting the Traitor; Lee, even at his drunkest, could be trusted to not seriously harm a fellow Leaf shinobi. Uchiha, however, could not.

He had noticed the presences following them a few blocks after leaving the wedding. He considered activating the Byakugan and confronting them directly; he was not enjoying the night as he should and was spoiling for a fight. After a few moments, he decided against this and gave the signal to the security surrounding the wedding, alerting them to the threat. He would then herd the Uchiha somewhere where he would not get in the way and do anything stupid. Then, the ANBU would take care of the intruders themselves. It was the responsible thing to do and what Neji's father would have done; it was what was best for Hinata. She would be upset if Neji missed the end of the party. It would be the very least he could do for her after all of the years of misery he gave her. Sometimes it surprised how much he loved her and Hanabi now considering the years of rage and hatred he had towards them.

This plan was torn to shreds, though, when Neji felt the Uchiha tensing. _Oh God, do not pull a Lee. You cannot fight right now. You cannot fight right now. I'm too sober to deal with an upset Naruto if you get yourself killed, Traitor. _

"Uchiha, let's keep moving. I'll take you to Sakura-san's apartment, which is just around the corner."

The look he was given was one Neji had seen many times before (on Lee's face...and on Hinata's; sometimes Neji hated Naruto for teaching her her ninja way of never backing down from a fight she could not win). The Traitor tore his arm away and plunged into the shadows where the intruders lingered like creeping black cats.

Neji sighed, considering for a moment the repercussions of letting the Traitor die. The lying piece of trash would stop bewitching the village higher-ups with whatever it was was so special about him, but if the intruders managed to take the Traitor's eyes, that could prove troublesome in the long run. He had also promised the Kazekage that he would see him home safely.

Besides, was is like he could expect more from someone who attacked all the five Kages (and their bodyguards) at the same time? What sane person would think that was a good idea? Honestly, who actually did that?

Traitors who thought they could still fight even when they couldn't walk straight, that's who.

Traitors who reminded Neji of his greatest shame (Neji's eyes still automatically dropped to floor when he remembered Hinata coughing blood and fallen at the chunin exams), that's who.

Traitors who made Neji consider leaving an incapacitated comrade to unknown enemies, that's who.

Neji was not like the Traitor who had left Naruto for dead to drown in a pool of his own blood in the Valley of the End. He was not his past self that had attacked the one he should protect as she should trembling before him.

Deadly and beautiful as a falling bird, Neji followed the Uchiha into battle.

xxxxxxxx

Sakura slumped down in her seat behind a potted palm tree. She had been dodging Lee (who wanted a dance) and Ino (who wanted to dance) all night. She didn't even have the excuse of dodging out to the hospital to escape;Tsunade had made sure her shifts were covered for tonight and tomorrow so Sakura "could have more time to take care to sleep off her hangover." While Sakura appreciated the thought, she had never been too much of a drinker. Sakura loved her thoughts and her mind and never could understand why someone would do anything to dull their mental sharpness. Above all things, Sakura adored a beautiful mind, and it killed her to see what Sasuke was doing to his the last few years. She had been thinking the best ways of tactfully bringing up the effects of PTSD and depression to him but had not yet had the opportunity to.

Searching for Sasuke, Sakura's keen eyes scanned the room. Hinata and Naruto were towards the center, slowly undulating to the music as if they were making love just by holding each other. She considered telling them to get a room for Sasuke's sake but decided not to bother them so she did not "get infected by the cuteness," as Ino squealingly called it.

She instead chose to get up and look for Sasuke herself. Each time she saw him now he looked more and more dead as if he had reached the end of his rope a long time ago but lacked the will to hang himself with it. She tried to tell herself that this was good because it meant he was sane and whole again—that it was the natural consequence of regaining the conscience and sanity he had lost. But if Sasuke was whole again, Sakura had never seen him look more shattered. She wanted to take him into her arms and hold him and tell him everything would be all right, but she felt even the slightest pressure, even the slightest kindness, would cause Sasuke to splinter beyond repair. Also, how could she tell him everything was going to be okay? Sakura was pretty sure if she said that, it would be a lie. Sasuke had been lied to enough for many lifetimes. Sakura swore she would never tell him nothing but the truth.

As she moved to rise, she felt a soft pad nudging her ankle and looked down. It was Pakun, Kakashi's animal summons. Sakura felt a quick flash of anxiety before calming down. She just knew that something horrible had happened, but she would not panic. She was a woman grown and not some little girl standing off to the side of a fight anymore. She was a medic-nin and would act as such.

"Hey, kid, you need to come now. Kakashi has someone he needs you to heal."

Sakura looked around the room and noticed the Sasuke was still nowhere in sight. She swallowed the old dread and nodded, following Pakun quietly out of the room.

The last time she felt this way was when Naruto and Sasuke had half killed each other for the final time. She had tended their wounds and patched them up just like she had when they were younger. They would live to die another day, and Sakura felt like she died from worry once more.

Sometime Sakura thought healing was simply killing in reverse.


	3. wedding fight

**Disclaimer: ****I don't own Naruto or any of the characters; they belong to Masashi Kishimoto. I don't get any money from this.**

**Author notes/warnings: Sasuke gets drunk and depressed. Minor violence. Also, apologies for any typos. Wrote this in one sitting and the proofread.**

Shruiken rained down from the heavens, and Neji batted them aside with ease. Including the nin that he and Uchiha had already taken down, there were twelve opponents, all at least tokubetsu jonin level. If it were not for Uchiha's current state, Neji imagined that the Traitor could take them all down with his easy grace; as it was, the Traitor was taking them down with ease, albeit not with grace. Eyes on his opponent, Neji darted forward and hit his enemy's chakra points, forcing the enemy to slump to the ground. It was necessary to take these intruders alive to ascertain their purpose in Konoha. With all the visiting dignitaries and guests, it would be a diplomatic nightmare if someone were to be assassinated.

Leaving his fallen foe, Neji stalked to where the Uchiha was playing (there was no other word for it; Neji had seen the man and battle and knew the way his muscles danced as he _annihilated _opposing forces. If the Traitor had wanted his foes dead, he would just have set them on fire...or lightning) with the last intruder. Neji, who had been spoiling for a fight, understood the need to release trapped frustration into a whirl of violence, but he did not have time to deal with the Uchiha punching out all of his issues. For the Uchiha, that would take centuries, and Neji was not a patient nor kind enough man for that. "Finish him, but leave him uninjured," Neji commanded.

The Traitor gave him a flat look that clearly said, "And you expect me to do as you say…make me." Ignoring the urge that silky black hair and _yank_ until he obeyed, Neji held the Uchiha's gaze. The Traitor, despite everything, was a comrade and had to cooperate some. If he didn't, then Neji's gut instincts would right and all the pageantry the Traitor made about his reformation would be complete and utter lies, as Neji expected and knew. It was the Uchiha's fate to be always as he had chosen to be, and until he showed Neji differently, a traitor and a liar was what Neji would believe him to be. Change was possible, Neji knew now, but it required effort. The Traitor never put effort towards anything good.

The Uchiha finally broke Neji's gaze and smirked as he danced towards the target, kunai flashing as he severed the enemy's tendons behind their knee. Neji held back a sympathetic wince. The Uchiha, no matter how drunk, was effective; cruel, yes, but effective nevertheless. No matter how much Tenten and Sakura went on about mercy, Neji knew that cruelty was sometimes better than kindness. Some people may call sparing the intruders kindness, but Neji knew from his recent experiences in ANBU that it would have been kinder to kill them now. Neji knew what awaited the intruders in Ibiki's torture chambers.

Slowly, waving like a leaf, the Uchiha dragged his felled prey to Neji and knelt down, looking at the enemy in the eyes (Neji bit back the thoughts of how the man was still standing after how much he had had to drink; the man was unnatural). "It wasn't me you were trying to kill, was it? If you were, you would have tried to kill me when I was out on my own and injured—not in the middle of Konoha with a another Konoha nin. Who the fuck are you, and why the fuck are you here?" asked the Uchiha to the nin.

The man said nothing except trying to spit in the Traitor's face. Neji rolled his eyes. Even the stupidest of the villagers knew that was a bad, bad idea.

"Your master destroyed our village, you goddamned son of a bitch. You burned the houses to the ground. Fuck our mission, and fuck you! That's all you'll hear from us!"

_Only the Uchiha has the ability to annoy people enough that they forget about the mission and try to kill him instead...not that I can blame them._

The Uchiha stiffened slowly and dropped the man, sliding slowly away.

"You are from the village in Grass, Kemuri, aren't you? But we didn't kill anyone…" The words were half wish, half mutter. The Uchiha's eyes were now firmly glued to the ground next to the nuke-nin's feet.

"That cursed teacher burned our houses and our fields! What do you think happened? There was nothing left but our hunger and hatred, motherfucker. I'll kill you!"

"I tried to get him to stop. He said he wouldn't kill anyone." The Uchiha was backing up and stumbled into a silent Neji who grudgingly caught him. The Uchiha seemed caught between going limp in Neji's arms or tensing and tearing out the missing-nin's throat that was telling him a litany of his sins. Neji decided the cost of the Uchiha killing the nin in a fit of rage was higher than the price of not hearing any information that the missing nin may give up in his enraged ranting. One hand still holding up the sagging Traitor, Neji leaned down and tapped the nin's throat, stopping the flow of words.

In the distance, he felt in incoming chakra of an ANBU squad. Good, that meant he didn't half to take out the trash himself, though he'd still have to take care of the Traitor and get him sober enough to give the Hokage a statement. Neji glanced around him, taking in the scene. All of the missing nin were in various stages of incapacitation and there was minimal property damage from their fight. When the ANBU dropped to the ground in front of him, Neji was ready to give orders, "Uchiha and I took these intruders into our custody approximately five minutes ago. They appear to originate Kemuri, a former village in grass, but have since been working as missing-nin in employ of some unknown entity. Please take them away to Morino-san as discreetly as possible. Uchiha and I will report to the Hokage."

It was important to be discreet and brisk in discovering the aim of the intruders, as it would not do for Konoha to look weak in front of any of its visitors despite the new peace. For now though, all Neji could do was round up the Uchiha and haul him off to the Hokage…but the Uchiha was nowhere in sight, having fled the scene when Neji's eyes left him.

Neji bit back a scoff. The Uchiha running away from his duties…typical. If Neji did not know any better, he could almost think the Uchiha felt ashamed. Well, at the very least, Neji had determined the Traitor could cooperate if there was someone overseeing his every move.

xxxxxxx

Sasuke's feet pounded down the street as he raced away from the alleyway. His ribs began to ache, and he ran faster, embracing the dull throb of his body. The hurt felt good; it made him stop thinking, "Oh, kamis, what have I done?" (The thought was more or less a constant these days). His eyes spotted a bar, and he let himself be drawn in. If he drank more, he could pass out. If he passed out, he would not have to think. Who knows? Maybe he would drown in his own vomit. It had almost happened a few times in the last year.

Halfway through his sixth cup of sake, an enraged snarl echoed through the bar. Ahhh, it was the Hyuga. Sasuke usually would be down for the fight, but now he just wanted to sleep. Where was Naruto when Sasuke needed him? (With Hinata...Fucking shit, it was their wedding night). Sasuke just wanted someone to spar against as friends—not to mock a fight with someone that wanted him dead. Everyone wanted Sasuke dead these days. Hell, even Sasuke knew he wanted Sasuke dead, but Sasuke couldn't let himself be dead until he made amends for all the wrongs he had done. But Sasuke knew he could never make amends, so Sasuke took another drink.

"I don't have time for this, Uchiha. Get up if you can walk, and report with me to the Hokage Tower."

His thoughts were too blurred to be indignant at the Hyuga trying to control him, so Sasuke did not get up. His legs were not cooperating...And Sasuke wanted food. When was the last time he had ate? When was the last time he had slept?

"Are you too drunk to walk?"

"I'm not drunk. M'sober. M'legs just not working."

Neji blinked. He knew body language, and he could tell at this point Sasuke was too gone to fake the slouch of his shoulders and the emptiness of his eyes. Neji tried to recall the last time he had seen eyes so devoid of anything, but the only thing that came close were those of Sai before Naruto. Then, Sai had blank glass doll-eyes—not living human ones. But the Uchiha—Sasuke—did not have glassy doll-eyes; he had dead eyes, eyes that were once human but were no longer. Usually, when Neji looked at the Uchiha, he saw scorn and hate in his eyes, but now the Uchiha sat before him slumped and too broken to put on his mask. His eyes told the story a dead boy given birth to a broken man.

The Traitor looked like he had gone a good while without eating or sleeping. Thinking back to pamphlets Tenten had given him on mental disorders associated with being a shinobi, Neji realized the Uchiha was not only ashamed…but also appeared to be depressed. Drunk, depressed Uchihas were a sight to behold. Neji was not really sure how to deal with this. Neji did not have time to deal with this. He needed to make sure the Uchiha was together enough to give his report to the Hokage and nothing more. The Uchiha was a lost cause; Neji did not hve time to deal with lost causes that would not change themselves.

Still, afterwards, Neji would dump the Traitor off at Sakura's and Naruto's feet. Someone need to feed him.

"Do you need me to carry you?"

"I can carry mah'self." The words were mumbled as Sasuke's hit the bar with a thud. Neji let out a gasp of exasperation before making a few rapid handsigns. An orb of water formed fluidly above Sasuke's head, hovering for a moment before dousing the catnapping Uchiha. Sasuke awakened and shook the water off slowly. With the affronted air only a suddenly awakened cat could give, he pounced on the Hyuga and pinned him to the ground. Apparently, the Hyuga's dickishness could annoy his thoughts away, Sasuke thought blurrily. Pressing a forearm against Neji's throat, Sasuke hissed, "Do you really want me to move?"

(Everyone, everyone wanted things from Sasuke these days even when they hated him. Sasuke hated this and he hated everyone and himself. Why could they just not hate him in peace and leave him be? He was trying so hard to good. It was just hard because some days Sasuke did not know what good was. Was it protecting the village like Itachi did? Sasuke loved his brother, but he acknowledged that Itachi did bad things to do what he considered to be good. Their family, their family, their family…)

The Hyuga stared up at him impassively. His eyes told Sasuke nothing. Sasuke had such a hard time telling what other people were thinking. Except that they hated them; that Sasuke always knew. It was an easy truth to see.

"Well, if you want me to get off my ass, make me," Sasuke challenged, pressing his forearm harder against the Hyuga's throat before pushing himself falteringly up. In that instant, the Hyuga moved in a blur. Sasuke felt himself being thrown up and over the Hyuga's shoulder. He closed his throat to keep from retching the bile as his stomach was left behind on the ground. This was not good, and Sasuke was going to fall in an undignified heap on the floor. He was too drunk to land gracefully.

But Sasuke did not land a heap on the floor. He landed in a heap over Neji's shoulder and stayed there as Neji moved to exit the bar. Making no move to fight Neji, Sasuke snarled as his stomach churned and ribs throbbed. Uchihas did not throw up in public or wince in pain. Plus, Sasuke was too tired and hungry to do much of anything. Sleeping sounded good.

Sasuke huffed, and Neji let out a soft snort.

_That godsdamned, smug piece of Hyuga-shit, _Sasuke thought as blackness swirled.

xxxxxxxx

Kakashi looked over the room, his eyes smiling at the young shinobi littered across the room before him. It was miraculous that so many had survived the war more or less intact. Kakashi seen many wars, and each one was one war too many. He hoped he never had to see another one. Every battle meant another comrade and friend dead or damaged, another life lost, and another child made a killer. As Hokage, Kakashi was going to make sure the peace lasted so no children would be forced to become the killers his children were (Kakashi had stopped denying that he thought of Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke of his children years ago). Yes, the future was unknown, but Kakashi was going to make it better than the past had been.

In the mean time though, Kakashi was temporarily going to give in to his guilty pleasure of procrastination and watch the Kazekage trying to reason with a drunk Lee with a drunk Gai. Oh the small pleasures in life….what would Kakashi do without them?

"Oh, Lee's youthfulness is increased tenfold by drink!" exclaimed Gai.

"And there's Tenten!" Kakashi replied delightedly. "Hers is increased by exasperation. Shit, that's got to hurt, but at least Lee's stopped challenging the Kazekage to a dance-off. Poor boy looked confused more than anything."

"But now Gaara-san is headed towards us! Does that mean that he wishes to continue the dance-off now that Tenten has knocked out Lee?" asked Gai.

Kakashi sighed before sending Gai off to stop Tsunade from being fleeced by a few opportunistic and shadier members of Naruto's acquaintance who he had made on his travels with Jiraiya. Playtime was over and it was back to diplomatic matters then. Gaara's face had changed from mildly confused to its perfectly blank mask. That could only mean that Gaara wanted to make small talk (Kakashi knew Gaara was not the type of man to make small talk, though) or speak about pressing matters…which should be Sasuke and his exploits in Sand. Some days Kakashi did not know what he was going to do with that boy.

"Mah, how have you been enjoying the wedding?" Kakashi asked carefully.

"Very well," Gaara replied. "People seem to… lose control of themselves when they are drunk. Speaking of which, the Uchiha is drunk and left an hour or so ago with Hyuga Neji. I would like to speak to him when he is sober."

"Sasuke, drunk? It's nice of you to concern yourself," Kakashi said evenly. _Shit, shit, shit…did he say something? Do something? If he keeps on throwing himself into the fire without thinking, I won't be able to protect him. Why does he do this? _

"I am not concerning myself. Uchiha has yet to give me any report, a report I am due since he was operating in _Sand_, about his intelligence on the coup he stopped—a coup he stopped without my permission," came the clipped reply.

So Gaara was annoyed, and Sasuke was drunk. This was not good, not good at all.

Kakashi stretched and faked a yawn, casual and cool. If he remained collected, everything around him could be controlled, simple and safe. Sasuke would be forced to sober up and stay sober; Gaara would hear the report and be satisfied. Everyone would be happy.

"I suppose I should find where they went off to then," Kakashi offered.

"I'll come with you," Gaara said to Kakashi's raised eyebrow. "It is more productive than this…I've never cared much for parties."

…..

Kakashi's felt the tightly controlled beat of Neji's chakra a few blocks away and almost missed the shadowy pulse of Sasuke's. He tilted his head as they neared Neji and Sasuke; Sasuke's chakra should not feel so weak. Something had happened, and Sasuke lay on the ground under a kneeling Neji. In the gloom of the moonlight, Sasuke's hair was shining silver. Kakashi could not tell if Sasuke looked more like Sakumo or Obito. This was bad, bad, bad….

His train of thought was interrupted by Gaara. "I can smell him, and he is not dead…just drunk, very drunk."

Kakashi sighed and sent the summons for Pakun. Someone would need to find Sakura so someone could make sure Sasuke did not die of alcohol poisoning (honestly, enemies could not inflict the boy inflicted on himself ).

Neji looked up at them, "Hokage-sama, Kazekage-sama. Uchiha and I were attacked by a dozen unidentified enemies who are now in the custody of ANBU. Now, the Tr—Uchiha is passed out drunk. He might have broken ribs that he failed to inform anyone about, to say nothing of his chakra exhaustion."

Still kneeling, Neji paused and brushed his hair out of his silvery eyes. "I am sorry if my earlier words sounded impolite; it's just that…"

Gaara reached out a hand to pull Neji up to his feet. Looking slightly confused, Neji stiffened for a second before accepting the proffered hand.

"We understand," Gaara and Kakashi managed to say at the same time.

Kakashi sighed.

xxxxxxx

Caressed by the feel of softness instead the coldness of the empty ground, Sasuke woke up blinking from the lack of pain. It hadn't not hurt for the longest time; it should hurt. Everything felt heavy though, and his arms felt like lead when he moved that. That would be a hurt when he started training again, Sasuke supposed. Sasuke wanted more, though. Sasuke lifted his head and was met by furious green eyes.

"You idiot, you absolute idiot," Sakura hissed. "You have broken ribs, chakra exhaustion, and dehydration. Your ribs punctured a wound during your little fight...I'm guessing it was a few days since you last ate or slept or even _thought _ about your ribs. Why didn't you find me? I told you to come to me if you ever got injured."

Sasuke started to sink back into the pillows before stopping when Sakura raised her fist threateningly. Was she actually going to bop him on the head? Sakura was the only person Sasuke would allow to this because she was one of the few that actually cared, who had always cared even when he was mad and frothing. She had been there, constant as Naruto, but without the sunburn Sasuke felt every time he looked into Naruto's bright rays. Sasuke was not sure how to treat her though; he hoped that Sakura did not feel the same way when she looked at him as he did when he looked at Naruto.

Sasuke just really hoped he hadn't been downgraded to Naruto status now. _Kami no, no, please no. Please don't she thinks I've reached that level of stupid yet. _

Sakura settled her fist before reaching to feel his forehead with her other hand. "Just rest now; you've been out for a couple days now. You're going to need your strength with everything that has happened. I'll try fill you in on what's what, but I have to leave in a few minutes to see another patient. Naruto will be here by then. "

Sasuke grunted and mumbled his thanks; Sakura smiled and ruffled his hair. The door opened and Naruto barged in, bellowing "Sasuke-teme! Sakura said you'd be up by now…"

Sasuke and Sakura both closed their eyes in unison before Sakura commanded Naruto to stop yelling in a hospital full of the dying. At the word dying, Sakura's youthful face grew lined and drawn. Sasuke watched her carefully. He never understood why she tried to heal those that were doomed to die anyways; it was a fool's errand and one too harsh for someone as caring as Sakura. He hoped she did not become as worn-down and jaded as med-nin were apt to become. The Sakura in his heart was as springy and petal-fresh as that girl with long, cherry blossom hair had been.

"Sasuke-kun, what happened to you was not the result of one fight…it was…how you have been living isn't healthy…There's a surgery I have to do now, but afterwards, we will talk. You're like a brother to me, and I can't keep watching you do this. Naruto will be with you until I get back. I just can't say everything that needs to be said right now, but it will be said. Right, Naruto?"

Naruto nodded tersely, eyes on Sasuke as Sakura padded away from the room.

"Bastard, you can't keep doing this. I'm not stupid; I know you don't want to—can't—come home here again like the war, your family, never happened. But if you keep on living like you want to be dead, you're gonna be dead. If you stay here, Hinata, Sakura, Kakashi-sensei, and I will be here forever and always. But if you keep up with the drinking and not sleeping and not eating and running alone…you need to stop. If you don't let us, we can't help."

Sasuke scowled. Naruto's eyes were on him so blue and open it hurt. Only a few years ago Naruto would be trying to beat sense into until Sasuke saw things Naruto's way. Now, Naruto was trying to talk sense into Sasuke. Sasuke didn't understand why people cared; he had always done stupid things (trying to destroy Konoha and the ninja world by himself had been one of them; ethics aside, logistically speaking, it would had been a nightmare). Now he was doing stupid things just as always, only they just hurt Sasuke instead of others. But Naruto was stubborn and would never give up on anything, never give up on Sasuke.

Sasuke nodded and said nothing. Naruto muttered curses under his breath before grabbing Sasuke's chin and stared him in his eyes. In that moment, Sasuke could feel the pulse of his heart beating and lived just for a moment. He wanted it to stop, and when Naruto released his face, it did.

"Bastard, live and be safe, just for a little bit. Just for me."

"Che, dobe. I'll live for myself," Sasuke snorted. For Naruto, Sasuke would do anything, even live like this. In response, Naruto smiled and Sasuke died a bit more inside.

"Anyways, while you were out, they interrogated those missing-nin. They were hired by some bastards who wanted to kill Gaara. Apparently, it's some kind of organization. So Kakashi's sending you, Sakura, Neji, and Lee off to Suna to help them out with stuff. I tried to get Kakashi to tell me more, but he said it was confidential. I'd come to make sure you don't do anything stupid, but they got me and Hinata doing some diplomatic stuff. What kind of honeymoon is that? Work, che…"

Sasuke stared at the floor.

Naruto scowled. "Look at me when I speak to you. If you're going to think angsty thoughts, tell me about them or let me give you something else to think about."

"I'm thinking nothing."

"You're always thinking nothing. That's okay, though. I'll wait as long as you need until you want to talk to me. And when you're gone, I'll have Sakura, Lee, and Gaara look out for you."

"I don't need anyone to look after me," Sasuke snapped.

"Yes, you do. You need someone, Sasuke. Everyone needs someone. Just let us be there for you. It's only going to be a few weeks, and afterwards, if you want to come back, we'll be here for you. Besides, if you do anything stupid during the trip, I have full permission from Kakashi to drag you back. Believe it!"

Naruto was looking at Sasuke like he'd never let go even when he should. Suddenly tired, Sasuke closed his eyes and the image of Naruto was still burned in them, bright and flaming. Sasuke knew he wanted Naruto to never let go. Sasuke knew he was selfish that way.

* * *

Darklight078-Thanks for the lovely review! Don't worry; I'm not giving up on this any time. The next update may be a month or so since I'm going to be out of town for a bit, but I've finally finished hammering out most of the plot. :)


	4. bon voyage

**Disclaimer: ****I don't own Naruto or any of the characters; they belong to Masashi Kishimoto. I don't get any money from this.**

**Author notes/warnings: References to past dubious consent and Plot no Jutsu. I'm going to be out-of-town for most of July, so the next update should be up sometime mid-August.**

A meeting was being held in the Hokage Tower. Usually, meetings were something that Gaara did not care for. Inter-village meetings were things that Gaara hated. He considered whether flooding the Hokage office with sand would stop the bickering.

"So you're telling me that a bunch of missing-nin somehow managed to break into Konoha to off my brother and were only noticed by a Uchiha fucking Sasuke who was drunk off his ass," Kankuro snarled, "wonderful security you have here. Really hasn't gotten better since the chunin exams."

Ibiki hissed, and Kakashi gave the room a look like he wanted to pull up his mask until the whole room went away. The Hyuga just looked at Kankuro impassively.

Gaara contained a wince. It was probably best not to mention a failed invasion from the past (even if you were allies with the village you had once tried to invade now). Besides, there were more important things to focus on: the people trying to kill him and destabilize Suna.

"I think the more pressing matter is why there were a dozen men for an assassination attempt. They were skilled but not skilled enough to put up a fight against the combined Suna and Konoha security. Surely one or two more subtle assassins would have been more effective, wouldn't they?" asked Neji. Gaara raised an approving eyebrow; that was just the question he had been thinking.

"How are things in Suna? I know Sasuke mentioned something about that coup," Kakashi said offhandedly. The Suna portion of the room stiffened (Temari and Kankuro were still a little bit miffed about the last time Sasuke had tried to kill Gaara. Gaara was displeased because the Uchiha had traipsed through _his _territory without so much as a by-your-leave. Suna and Wind Country were _Gaara's_, and Sasuke's shadowy chakra-pulse of lightning and storm clouds could be felt across the dry desert. The Uchiha's presence was like that of an opponent who needed to be shaken by the scruff of his neck until he learned to _back down _and show his belly).

"To you, I'm sure he did," Gaara said politely, "speaking of which, is he still in the hospital? I would like to talk to him about that."

Kakashi's responding yawn was interrupted by a calculating Shikamaru, "Even when put under torture, the nuke-nin didn't know who they were working for other than it was an organization; then there's this terrorist group that's likening itself to the Akatsuki that the Kazekage was telling us about. Kuno, aren't they called? Add in the attempted coup, and there's a lot of things happening at once—all small things that try to unsettle the balance of power and the peace but don't quite succeed."

"Are you saying that these things should be succeeding?" asked Gaara. Kuno, the organization modeled after the Akatsuki—the one who Gaara thought was behind the assassination attempt—was too effective in its other activities to have botched the assassination attempt so badly. Gaara's senses were tingling and he felt caged, unable to tear and rip until he found answers.

Shikamaru shook his head slowly, saying, "No, it's that they're failing before they even begin. It's these small things that should be threats in the long-term, but then turn out not to be. The assassination attempt was ham-handed at best; no commanding officer, even an idiotic one, would think that was a good idea. The attempted coup was literally stopped by Uchiha Sasuke sleeping with the right informant and getting her to spill all their secrets. It's like these are a smoke screen for something bigger…but what I don't know."

"That's the one thing binding this all together though," Neji mused, "Uchiha Sasuke."

"And no one ever listened to me when I told them, 'No, don't let the Uchiha go off by himself. He's to troublesome for that.' Now look what's happened," muttered Shikmaru.

"And that is what I wanted to talk to you about," Gaara announced loud and clear to the room. Suna was Gaara's and he would protect it. Politics and fondness for Konoha aside, Suna—Gaara's home, Gaara's heart—was his first responsibility. It was the place where his mother went to her death making life for him. It was the place that took Gaara back and raised him above all others to be Kazekage from the inky depths of his insanity. There was nothing more beautiful than the bloody sun raising over the sand-seas and lighting the life of Gaara's people. Suna was home, and Suna would always be safe as long as Gaara breathed.

"I would like to request a four-man squad of Konoha-nin, including Uchiha Sasuke, to accompany my party back to Suna."

The room looked at Gaara blankly, and Gaara took in a deep breath before explaining himself. Sharing his thoughts had never been easy for Gaara, but now, as a leader, it was a necessary evil that he must persevere.

"Lady Kagome, the woman Uchiha slept with—the one that told him about the coup—is the Wind Daimyo's cousin; the Daimyo refuses to interrogate her, and she refuses to talk until she gets to talk to the Uchiha again. This, combined with Uchiha's knowledge of these missing-nin and other intelligence I'm sure he has gathered, make him a valuable asset in our investigation into this, all down clandestinely of course. If these things are indeed a smoke screen, we don't want our enemies know that we are aware of this."

"And we need the other three for what then? To be the Uchiha's keepers and make sure he doesn't drink himself to death or get attacked by horny women?" snarked Kankuro.

"Hmmm, I'm pretty sure they'd mainly be acting as his body guards. Have you seen Lady Kagome? She's a cougar if I've ever seen one, and the Uchiha is so pretty. She wouldn't be able to restrain herself, and poor Uchiha would be left helpless. Hell, even I'm not heartless enough to let her get her paws on him," Temari smirked.

"Be quiet," snapped Gaara. His blood-siblings were the people precious to him. Gaara loved that they joked and laughed with him instead of shaking before him, but they looked at him and saw "little brother"—not "respected leader."

"I agree," Kakashi said suddenly. "A four-man squad would make sense since it's always better to be discreet, and if we play our cards right, we can make it look inconspicuous. We can send Sakura and say she's on vacation to pick some desert medicinal herbs or something. No one would think anything of Rock Lee going since he and you are such good friends. And we can say that we're sending Neji to keep Lee in line. Besides, he'd make a good squad captain. And then we can say that Sasuke is being dragged along with Sakura as a sort-of forced detox."

Temari pouted slightly, "But wouldn't Shikamaru be a better choice for squad captain? He's already familiar with Suna from all the times that he has visited me."

Shikamaru sunk into his seat like he wished it would eat him.

Kankuro gave a very definite, "No."

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Neji shuffled to the hospital room a few steps behind Hinata-sama, following as close as a shadow. Where Hinata went, Neji would follow, even if it were somewhere as unpleasant as the Uchiha's sickroom to deliver flowers and have a quick visit. _Well, considering that I have a mission with him, I suppose I should try to get used to his company_. _And after that, according to Hinata, I'll be seeing a lot of him because he's her husband's best friend, _Neji reminded himself.

The Uchiha was tossed out and small on the hospital bed, blankets half covering him.

"Oh, Sakura said he might be out because of the pain medications; I'll just leave these here then," Hinata said softly as she placed the flowers down on Uchiha's bedside table. "He looks just like a doll, so small. I don't want to leave him, but I really need to get going. Neji, would you mind staying just for an hour or two? He looks so lonely like this."

Neji gave a brief nod. Hinata was too soft-hearted. The Uchiha was a powerful warrior, merciless and fierce and fickle as a pagan god. He was not some child and puppy-dog that Hinata could take to her and Naruto's new home and fix. Dead fathers dying for Konoha could not be brought back to life; dead families killed on Konoha's orders remained corpses. The pain of lost loved ones just ached like old scars never fading. Uchiha was not like Naruto who accepted her healing ointment at the chunin exams; he was content to let his wounds fester—like Neji who still cursed his own face every time he looked in the mirror and thought he saw his father.

"It was a good thing you did, Neji-niisan, saving Sasuke-kun after he hurt his ribs," Hinata murmured, "please continue looking after him on your mission to Sand. Please continue to look after yourself. You are like a brother, and Sasuke-kun in Naruto's best friend…if anything happened…"

"Nothing will happen," Neji said dutifully.

"Of course, Neji—niisan, you are the best nin in the family after all; just be careful, please," Hinata laughed smiling as she left the room.

Neji was always careful on missions. The last two years he had been working part-time missions of-sorts with ANBU. Neji knew that he was good, probably one of the best, but for some reason, the invitation to join ANBU never came. It wasn't for the reasons Neji thought—not because Neji was of the Branch House and not Main—but because of Hiashi-sama. Hiashi couldn't let his brother's son die for the village like his brother did, Hiashi had told Neji. Besides, Neji was too talented for that and Hinata and Hanabi loved him too dearly. Wouldn't it be better if he took missions as needed on a part-time basis and teach the younger generations of the Hyuga? "Forgive me," Hiasha had said, "perhaps it is an old man being selfish." In the end, Neji was the one feeling selfish for thinking of doing anything that would displease his loved ones; he lived for them and nothing else.

Resigned, Neji sprawled out composed and loose-limbed in the chair next to the Uchiha's bed, looking anywhere but the unconscious Uchiha's face.

_What Hinata-sama doesn't know is that I didn't save him. Tossing him over my shoulder like that—I probably made his ribs even worse; maybe that's even when he punctured his lungs. He was a fallen comrade, and I should have protected him better. I don't care about being Branch and whatever people say about me being bound by duty to protect the Main House; I do it because Hinata is my family and friend. When I was younger, I failed to protect and regretted it ever since. I will not fail to protect again. I do not do this because it is my duty. I do it because the Tr—the Uchiha is my comrade. I will protect him just as I do Lee, Hinata, Tenten, and my other friends…even if he is not my friend...even if he does not make an effort to save himself…Kamis,with crazy teammates, mysterious Kazekages, and self-destructive Uchihas, this is going to be a long mission. _

Scowling, Neji pulled the blanket to better cover Sasuke before settling down in his chair. He would stay until Sasuke woke up even if he swore the man was looking so defenseless and asleep to spite him. The Uchiha was not a puppy-dog, and Neji should not be feeling this urge to ruffle his hair.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Sasuke had fallen asleep to the soft sound of Sakura's tears. After filling him in about assassination attempts, doom, gloom, and other destruction happening in Suna, Sakura had given him the promised Talk telling him that the way he was living was killing him. Killing her and Naruto as they watched him. That she and Naruto didn't want to smother him, but why didn't he come to them when he was in in pain? Was he in pain now? Then why didn't he ask for pain medication? And with that, Sakura had placed a glowing hand to his head and gifted Sasuke his first peaceful night's sleep since he was child. Drifting in dreams, he had sweet oblivion and no memories lurking half-forgotten. It was almost bliss, better than the fitful sleep drinking, drugs, and curled up against a target for a mission brought him.

Waking, he expected more sobs, but all he heard was silence. He allowed himself to bask in it a few precious moments before he noticed the other two presences in the rooms. The Kazekage stood at the foot of his bed, jade eyes hard, and the Hyuga slept sprawled out in a chair beside Sasuke's head.

What. The. Actual. Fuck?

Sasuke slowly sat up and, remembering that he was unarmed and defenseless, decided to be as polite as he could possibly be. Calling upon the manners his mother long ago tried to beat into his head, Sasuke asked, "What are you doing here? Don't you have more important people to bother?"

Jade eyes remained unblinking, but pale white ones fluttered open. Sasuke was treated to the sight of Hyuga Neji, mussed hair framing his face, looking something less than composed.

"Where am I?" snapped the Hyuga.

"By my bedside apparently," muttered Sasuke, "don't you remember spending the night with me?" Sasuke had long since learned that when the straight-laced ones like Neji were unraveling and frayed annoying (or flirting with) them could get delicious reactions that gave away more than reading their body language ever did.

Sasuke was enthralled to see the Hyuga's cheeks tinge slightly pink before the Hyuga fired back, "Your body is tensed, and you are glancing towards the windows and doors as if you are looking for an exit. Your left hand just went to your side as if reaching for a weapon, but you have no weapon. From the expression on your face and your body language, I'm assuming you know very well that you are weak and defenseless and therefore are reaching for any defense mechanism. Honestly, do you think that batting your eyelids would unsettle me?"

Sasuke opened his mouth before closing it. He could answer the Hyuga's analysis, but that would not get Sasuke the answers that he wanted.

"Again, why are you here?" Sasuke asked, moving his gaze from the Hyuga to the Kazekage. The Hyuga muttered something about Hinata's soft heart and the mission Sakura had told Sasuke about earlier before making to move out of the room. He was stopped by Gaara placing a pale hand on his shoulder. Sasuke watched in interest as the Hyuga flushed once again before nodding mutely (Sasuke watched raptly. If he did not know any better, he would think that the Ice Prince and the Kazekage had sexual tension, but that couldn't be right, could it? As far as Sasuke knew, the Kazekage was in love with Naruto, and the Hyuga pretty-boy was in love with his own reflection. Someone couldn't have hair that soft and well-kempt without being vain about their appearance).

"I needed to speak with you about the attempted coup and the upcoming mission to Suna. Now that Neji-san is here, it seems more practical to speak with both of you at once, seeing as he is going to be squad captain," Gaara said calmly.

"So you decided you had to talk to us so badly that you'd wait in here watching us as we slept?" Sasuke asked.

"Yes," was Gaara's one-word response. Sasuke did not even know where to go with that so he stayed silent. The awkward quiet continued for a few minutes, each man too stubborn to make a sound, before Neji finally cracked.

"You said you wanted to speak with us, Kazekage-sama."

"Yes, I know that the two of you have already been briefed, but I wanted to talk to you individually. As you know, this will need to be as secretive as possible, which means no fighting. Whatever problems lie between the two of you, you need to deal with them; I don't have time for them. And Uchiha, do you remember Lady Kagome?"

Sasuke blinked. _Oh Kamis, no—not that harpy. Why me? Why me? Why me? She always wants to touch me. Well, if worst comes to worst, I can put her under genjutsu—if I have permission, of course. Kakashi wants to obey orders like a good dog. _

"She is asking to see you; in fact, she is refusing to speak about anything related to the coup until she sees you. Would you be willing to talk to her?" The question was more of an order than a request.

"Yes." (Sasuke knew this was the only answer he was allowed to give. Besides Sasuke is nothing but a weapon, and it is a mission just like any other mission. If worst comes to worst and Sasuke is not allowed to use genjutsu, he can just lie back through the harpy's proclivities and think of Konoha…or Naruto. Whichever one makes it easier, though these days it hurts more when Sasuke imagines that it is Naruto thrusting over top of him).

Gaara looked at Sasuke intently for a moment before continuing on, "And it goes without saying, a repeat of before cannot happen. If you plan to take any action, any at all, you will do so only with my knowledge and my permission."

"Yes," Sasuke answered. (Sasuke knew he was a traitor and a liar. All he had left now were the rules and his friends. His friends were better off without Sasuke, so Sasuke just clung to the rules these days. Follow the rules, save Konoha, and always say yes whether it be to an order, another nameless fuck whose touch made him scream when it wasn't Naruto's, or another drink. Sasuke knew to follow the rules and say yes because making his own rules had ended so badly).

xxxxxxxxx

After informing the Uchiha he expected him to be ready to leave in two day's time, Gaara left the room with the Hyuga. In terms of leaders of the squad that Gaara requested from Kakashi, the Hyuga was one of the better choices, Gaara supposed. He seemed to be clever and responsible, but looking at the Hyuga's interactions with the Uchiha, however….

"Is he stable? Will he be able to obey orders?" The question was simple, but it was one that Gaara could not ask the Hokage or Naruto or any of Sasuke's friends.

His answer was just a soft snort. "Uchiha can be called many things, but can he be called obedient? Never. For some reason though, he seems to obey orders from the Hokage for the most part anyways. And as for how stable he is, he functions and lives, but he hates every second of it."

Gaara tilted his head, thinking. "So are you saying that he is suicidal?"

"No, it seems that he has accepted his fate and makes no move to move past it."

"And what would you say his fate is? Redemption, perhaps?"

"No, to please his friends and comrades. That's all there is for him. He may or may not care about the village, but he seems to show shame at his past actions. He just makes no action to move past it. It's his fate."

A familiar rage filled Gaara's belly, trying hard to work its way up his throat and fill his mind and speech. People, so many people, had thought the same thoughts about him just a few years ago: that he, the former monster-child, may be showing shame for his past monstrosities but he should stay a monster that killed Suna's enemies and nothing else. That he shouldn't lead. That he shouldn't make it so that killing was not necessary in the first place. Changing oneself, Gaara knew, was possible; it was changing other's that was nigh upon impossible. Gaara knew this from the trouble he had trying to get people to stop fearing him. Admiration now mixed in with fear, people still looked at him from the side of their eyes, eyeing him like unsettled prey. Gaara did not understand other people and their thoughts and their looks that they gave him.

"Are you saying that the Uchiha is just doomed to be what people always see him as: a former murderer and traitor that cannot be reformed?"

The Hyuga let out a soft sigh. "I never said that; I didn't call him a traitor or a murderer just then. I said that he shows shame at his past actions and makes no attempt to move past his shame. As long as the Uchiha thinks of himself as such, no matter how much good he does, in his own eyes, whenever he looks at himself in the mirror, he will never be redeemed. Unless he tries to change himself and not just what he does, he will be as he has always been—" the Hyuga paused—"he will continue to hate himself. So to answer your first question, I would say, no, that the Uchiha is not stable. He is trying to do good perhaps, but he, himself, does not ever think he will be good."

The wind whispered as Gaara tried to formulate a response. In the air, he can smell the scent of rain and dirt and the orange-and-cinnamon of the Hyuga's hair. Gaara missed the desert heat and the smell of dry sand, but leaning towards the Hyuga, if he closed his eyes, he could imagine he was in Suna's markets.

The Hyuga turned, "Perhaps it is best not to look too deeply into the Uchiha's eyes before one sees too much of oneself in them. My team will be ready in two day's time, Kazekage-sama."

After the Hyuga left, Gaara could still smell Suna's markets; in a few days, Gaara promised himself, he would be able to take in the real thing and not a false imitation. Still, anything smelled better than the reek of old puke and antiseptic from the Uchiha's room. Perhaps on the trip to Suna, the Uchiha would start smelling like the Sun instead of the dying.

* * *

Dewa95: Thanks for your lovely review! And I tried to develop Neji a little more in this chapter (or at least make him less of a dick to Sasuke) ; it's just that he's struck me as someone who judges quickly and it takes a lot to earn his regard.


	5. road-tripping

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of the characters; they belong to Masashi Kishimoto. I don't get any money from this. Also, I realized a couple of chapters ago, I mentioned Gaara raising an eyebrow...so let's assume Gaara has eyebrows in this fic.**

**Warnings: Vague references to some dubious consent and underage. Some mentions of NaruHina and one-sided LeeSaku (still haven't decided if I'm going to do anything with Sakura romantically, if I do anything at all). This fic is eating my brain and this was written in airport with minimal editing during a looong delay so any critique on typos and the fight scene would be helpful. Thank-you to anyone who reviewed!**

Travelling in large groups, Sakura decided, was hell. Not because of the heat and humidity (Land of Fire summers were second to none in those terms) that made her hair clingy sticky to her sweat-slick neck, but due to idiotic, good-for-nothing _males _that would not listen to any of her suggestions. Not for the first time, Sakura felt self-conscious about being one of the few women in a group of men. Honestly, it should be common sense not travel in full ceremonial regalia through swampy Land of Rivers summer-turning-fall even if the group was supposed to be a diplomatic envoy. Had they not heard of heat stroke?

Well, at least they listened to her after the first man almost passed out, but since she was an experienced med-nin who trained under the Senju Tsunade, they really should have listened to her the first time.

A warm breeze swept through Sakura's hair as she squatted down to examine a half-trampled herb. If Kakashi said her cover was looking for medicinal herbs, she would damned well do her job…and make sure Sasuke did not pull a Sasuke…and avoid Lee's, _hell, _even Sasuke's, worried looks. Away from the hospital and the moans of patients thanking her for was doing all she could as they died (everyone died, Sakura knew, but it _always _hurt nonetheless as life faded as she tried to prolong it), she was doing fine and did not need Lee to worry about her. If Sakura was a healer that could not heal, a caregiver that couldn't give care, then what was her purpose? Her boys didn't understand that she was strong; she could stand alone. Sakura had been propping up others for years; she did not need anyone to give her a shoulder to cry on. Sakura always cried; with every life lost (every time Sasuke left, every wrinkle in Kakashi's face when a nin did not come home), she cried. She did not need anyone to cry with her. For her.

Deciding to dig up the plant and figure out its abilities later, Sakura formed handsigns to make the plant pop out of the earth and into her sweaty palm. Hell, even the dirt was sticking to her sweat Behind her, a shadow formed as Temari approached from behind. Sakura sighed. Sometimes she wished she could be like Temari: fighting foes without a thought, going home to loved ones without a thought when the fight was over. "Is it really that bad?" Temari asked Sakura.

"What is bad?" Sakura asked.

"Healing or whatever it is you're doing in Konoha; you seem as if the wind has blown away your worries, and we're only getting closer to the problem," Temari replied.

"I'd never do anything different. I started healing after watching my teammates bleed out as I sat on crying. I heal others now, but being a med-nin is for myself. At least I can cry as I heal now," Sakura said, joke falling flat. She changed the subject. "This group that Gaara was talking about—Kuno—what is their goal? What do they do?"

_I know that she is unlikely to tell me everything_, Sakura thought, _as close as Suna and Konoha have gotten, as close and she and Shikamaru have gotten, we are still two different villages. With less war comes less fighting, and fighting is the shinobi way-of-life. There's plenty of work now that everyone is rebuilding and exploring new lands and making new treaties, but what will happen once the rebuilding is done, once the treaties are all made? Our way-of-life is changing, but can we change with it? Tsunade-shishou often told me change is great, but with change comes great instability. There were so many defeated during the war. The Land of Grass—where the nuke-nin that tried to assassinate Gaara are from—is a power vacuum with their leader having died in the war. The existing peace is too new for the balance of power to be fully determined. It is an unsure world to live in to be sure._

Temari smiled tightly and almost-reluctant said, "We aren't really sure what they are or who they are. As for their goal, it almost seems as if they have a personal vendetta against Sand or hell, just Gaara in particular. There have been no major or direct attacks on the village that I can speak of, but what has been done has been malicious and cruel." Temari paused. "One instance involved energy pills that should have helped ANBU agents poisoning them instead. There have been ambushes attacking squads when no one except Gaara and direct commanding officers had any information of their routes. The thing is the squads being attacked are genins, though, on fucking C-ranks. Missions that were supposed non-violent, supposedly. Not that many genin, maybe just three or four over the last year, but we don't even find the bodies. Even if you're an enemy, even if you're…there's no reason to do that."

Sakura gulped, remembering her first C-rank as a genin. There was no reason for anyone to be attacking a genin, but that did not change the fact that Sakura now knew genin, children actually, should not be going out on missions where they could be asked to die or be killed without a thought in the first place. So Sakura said all she could say, "I am sorry for your loss; it's always horrible to lose a comrade so young…how do you know that it's one organization behind everything?"

Temari stared a the mud beneath their feet as she said, "Fuckers send us— actually Gaara—letters."

Under the almost autumn sun, Sakura felt the sweat on her skin turn clammy. The calm she had been feeling since leaving the hospital transformed into a full-blooded hysteria.

Children. Why was it always children who died too young in this world?

xxxxxxx

"No." The words were final, and for the first time in his life Neji found himself agreeing with the Uchiha. Some things should just be left unsaid…and unknown. A list of the Uchiha's lovers was one of them. Lee was currently pleading for any stories of the Uchiha's past romantic exploits for hints on how to woo Sakura. Uchiha was not being forthcoming.

Also, the thought of anyone touching the Uchiha was distasteful to Neji…_Only because I have no interest at all in touching the Uchiha…I mean anyone else touching the Uchiha…no interest in touching or sex or Uchihas, _Neji let out a silent sigh. Training, he would do a lot of training and not think of any green-eyed Kazekages or black-haired former nukenins. Yes, sparring with Lee until he collapsed and forgot about his sexual frustration—Neji meant his frustration, nothing sexual about it— would be good.

"Please, in the spirit of youth and the name of love, just give me one story… or advice, Sasuke-san. Surely someone as experienced in these matters as you has some advice to give me. You do not have to mention any names."

"Hn." This was the fifth "hn." Neji hoped for his teammate's sake that he would have enough sense to stop asking, but after over six years of unrequited love for Sakura, Neji knew Lee had little sense when it came to matters of love (Lee never gave up, especially when it would be good for him to, and with Sakura, for some reason, Lee kept on hoping one day she would fall out of bed and decide that was the day she was going to fall in love with him. If it wasn't so tragic, Neji would laugh at the futility of the situation). Anyways, Neji could not entirely blame Lee: love was precious, Neji now knew, but continued unrequited love for someone was _stupid. _There were more productive things to do with your time like training, for instance; Neji trained frequently these days. It kept that trapped feeling that Neji swore never to feel again away. Neji was a human man surrounded by friends and family. He was not some imagined bird breaking already-broken wings as it flapped uselessly against the bars of its cage. No, Neji was loved, and Neji loved his family and would never think of leaving them. That was all there was to it. Nothing more, nothing less.

Sasuke fixed their travelling group of Neji, Gaara, Kankuro, and Lee with a flat glare before speeding slightly up, casually as if by coincidence, and not because their probing questions bothered him.

Neji thought his aloofness in this matter was stupid. If Uchiha was less proud and that the subject matter upset him instead of disinterested him, then even Lee was sensitive enough to stop that lines of conversation. Problem solved.

Gaara looked at Sasuke's retreating behind before curiously suggesting, "Perhaps he does not like talking about everyone he's slept with."

The thought of anyone sleeping curled up against Uchiha, who Neji remembered as being so pale and open when asleep in that hospital, made him deadpan (not angrily) , "Oh, I'm sure he just doesn't want to discuss Lady Kagome. She's getting a bit up there in years, isn't she? I doubt that would have been very pleasant. In fact, I think Uchiha's usual type is a little more _blonde._"

The back stiffened and Uchiha turned to face them. His eyes were frigid and his words even colder. "No, my type isn't blonde; it's whoever I need to fuck for the mission when genjutsu won't work or is not an option. Preferable to physical torture, anyways. It's been this way for the last six years or so. As for advice Lee, you should not being asking someone whose either killed or fucked over half of the people they've slept with."

The group stared stiff as Uchiha's once-careful not-retreat became a rapid stride away from them. Kankuro was the first to offer any comment, "Six years ago…but then, he would of only been…"

"Yes," was Gaara's response as he started to head after the dot that was now Uchiha's retreating figure.

"Let me go after him, Kazekage-sama," Neji asked. This was his to fix; his duty because of the words he said (he should try to follow Hinata's way of not saying anything unless it is nice or needs to be said, but, as Neji knows, he is neither nice nor patient).

"Gaara," said the Kazekage.

"What?" asked Neji, half-confused, half-intrigued.

"He wants you to call him Gaara," Kankuro sighed.

"Let me go after him, Gaara," Neji asked once more. Who was this man who offered others only commands and orders but gave none of his inner thoughts to anyone? Why would he give Neji his name? Neji could understand many things and could see all of the world. He wanted to know more.

"Yes," said Gaara.

….

Neji found Sasuke resting on the riverbank. Approaching Sasuke without fear or without care for the first time, Neji sat down beside him. He let the silence reign for a few minutes before speaking.

Sasuke never accepted apologies: not from the village for his family's slaughter, not from Obito when he was begging for forgiveness. Sasuke did not respect apologies, seeing them as hollow and empty words. He respected only action and truth. Knowing this, Neji could only offer him the truth and his future, hopefully less antagonistic actions. He needed Sasuke's respect and some form of cooperation. This mission would be a disaster without it.

"When I was thirteen, I 'overheard' two members of the Main Family discussing what Branch girl would be best to breed me with. At the time, I didn't know Hizashi-sama would allow no such thing to happen. Still, if anything happened to him or Hinata or Hanabi, it could still happen. Technically, if they asked it of me, I would be compelled by honor and law to obey."

"Che, village law—the village we kill and die and live for," Sasuke spat before pausing. "Do you think that by comparing how we got screwed by the village will make us friends?"

"No," Neji replied, "I just have never told anyone else that."

"So how do you not hate them?" Sasuke asked.

"How do I not hate wh—what do you mean by that?" Neji asked, eyes narrowed.

His only reply was a laugh as the Uchiha rose and started his retreat once again.

"You know very well what I mean by that. Tell the others that I'll be ahead scouting for an ambush. And this does not mean we're friends. It just means we both got fucked over by the village. Join the club and try not to get sentimental."

"But you are still fighting for the village. You must think that there's some value to it. There's the future, or what could be the future, under Kakashi-sama's and then Naruto's rule. Tell me is that why you're fighting. Is that what gives Uchiha Sasuke hope?"

Sasuke grunted without turning around, and Neji let a silent not-laugh. He could have sworn he saw the Uchiha almost nod his head. Neji must have mis-seen. No one who was as bitter, who had as much right to be bitter, as the Uchiha could have room to hope. Neji certainly did not.

xxxxxxxxx

Riding astride on a frog in the manner of ancient warrior queens, or as close as one could get to ancient warrior queens while riding a frog, Hinata thought. Hinata thought of the most delicate way of asking her new husband if he wanted to ask his best friend into to their household to be a third member of a ménage a trois before giving up all hope. Try as she might, Hinata could not find the words to say what she was thinking. Hinata let out a small laugh before deciding to give up almost entirely. Even if she was blunt, she doubted Naruto would respond to her question coherently.

(It took the boy three years to even respond to her declaration over love; Hinata thought if she asked him about his feelings for Sasuke, his brain might break. Hinata loved Naruto and knew Naruto loved Sasuke, so Hinata shared Naruto's love and would not mind sharing Naruto if it made him happy. Besides, Sasuke with his smiles so sad made Hinata want to hold him until he was whole again…But Hinata was not sure how Naruto loved Sasuke and how Sasuke loved Naruto. Until then, Hinata just waited. This was something she could not interfere with. Naruto said her loved her, and Hinata loved all of Naruto. That was all she needed).

Besides, Hinata had seen the way Neji looked at Sasuke. There was uneasiness—something close to disdain—but something else was in there. Hinata knew Neji; she knew him and his thoughts better than her own. If Neji truly did not like something, he did not look at it or say anything about it. Even when he thought the Main Family had marched Hizashi-ojisan to his death, Neji had done nothing and confronted nobody, just simmering under the surface as he trained until his hands bled. Neji always talked about Sasuke, watchful eyes on him like a falcon—eyes full of longing. Neji had never watched something he cared nothing for. Even when Neji thought Hinata was less than the dirt beneath her shoe (back then, Hinata thought to herself, she was. Without Naruto, without changing herself, she would have been too timid to speak up about the wrongs she saw in the Hyuga family. Now, Hinata spoke up and she _would _continue to speak. The Branch family would not live as slaves), he always looked at her as he trod down on her. When Sasuke was nearby, Neji always looked at him. Even with whatever laid between Naruto and Sasuke, Hinata hoped that they could resolve it without hurting Neji.

Hearing just the whispers of the breeze dancing in the grass around her, Hinata held onto her toad tighter, looking for Naruto. Hinata could not see him in the distance any more; she had told him to speed up when he heard about the famed ramen stalls of Kusa. Somewhere behind her, she felt Shikamaru's presence. Once again, Hinata pushed aside slight irritation at the third wheel on their honeymoon. The Hokage-sama, in his wisdom, had decided it would be useful for Naruto and her to visit some of Jiraiya's old acquaintances in Grass on their way to Iwakagure. And Shikamaru was traveling with them to "make sure they didn't have to deal with anything troublesome on their honeymoon"—a honeymoon now turned diplomatic mission to Iwa, reconnaissance mission in Grass for any intelligence on the assassination attempt, or whatever it was Kakashi-sama deigned it to be. Hinata sighed; if she did not respect him so, Hinata would think sometimes it seemed like the Copy-nin took joy in inconveniencing people.

When the toad fell and Hinata heard again only the shoulder-high grass around her crinkling, she was ready. Long experience had taught Hinata that too-quiet silence was a bad thing. When they came, Hinata was ready.

Byakugan awakened, she waited for the chakra signals to emerge, but all she saw were four cold, heatless figures jump from the grass engulfing them. Slipping away from the figure that lunged down on her, Hinata slipped away, fingers flying to where the pressure points should be to block their chakra pathways…but there were no pressure points. There was nothing but the feel of cold wood under Hinata's fingers. Realization hit her as a wooden figure grabbed her neck and the third one tried to sweep her feet from under her.

_These are puppets, so they do not have chakra in them, _Hinata thought._ They're wooden. Whoever is controlling them—that's who has the chakra. But puppets have strings, and if I break the strings, I should break the puppets. The question is though: is whoever controlling the puppets going to run away when I break the puppets or continue attacking?_

The grip on her throat grew tighter, but Hinata jumped over the feet trying to trip her. Remembering upon the stories Neji-niisan had told her of his fight with the spider-nin Kidomaru, she singled out the chakra wires suspending the puppets. Hands turned blue, Hinata tapped the wire supporting the two figures in front of her. For the one beneath her legs, she simply jumped up and then down, smashing her feet through its skull. As she positioned herself to take care of the one holding her, a burning figure descended on her, ripping the puppet from behind her back. The puppet then was splintered into a thousand pieces. A second later, Shikamaru followed.

"Why didn't you help her?" an irate Naruto, blazing bright in Sage Mode, snarled.

As his body dimmed, Hinata placed her hand on Naruto's forearm and said, "Thank-you, Naruto-kun, but do not worry yourself. Even if you had not come, I was handling myself fine." She hugged him, bringing him closer to her chest to calm his breathing. "Everything is just fine."

Shikamaru shrugged, saying, "Like Hinata said, she was taking care of herself just fine. Besides, with puppets come puppet-masters—who I would have caught if you hadn't of come barging in here and. Anyways, we have bigger problems."

Interrupting Naruto's impending angry tirade, Hinata asked, "What problems do we have, Shikamaru-kun?"

"These puppets are bothersome," Shikamaru said, "They're Sunan…but they're old, very old—maybe thirty years old and out-of-date—so they can't be a Suna-nin's. But it doesn't make sense for these to still be in use by a nuke-nin because I could swear these are the work of Sasori of the Red Sands. All of his puppets were destroyed in his last fight with Sakura and Lady Chiyo…or at least that's what they say. I just don't want to know how someone could have gotten a hold of these. This mission is gonna be even more of a drag than I thought it was going to be."

Under his breath, Naruto cursed. Hinata sighed.

Well, at least it had been a good honeymoon while it had lasted. They could get around to consummating their wedding night another time (for some reason, Naruto and Hinata had not been to keen on losing their virginities to each other in a house of people with eyes who could see through walls).

xxxxxxx

Gaara stalked through the marshy grass. Konoha's brown, leaf-rotting soil had given way to pungent _mud_, but it still was not the sand of home. Kuno had not been active lately, but the genin teams, or their bodies a small voice in the back of his head told him, had not been found. His reports from Baki were inconclusive except for vague rumors containing the name of one man—a man Gaara knew that Uchiha Sasuke was intimately acquainted with. Gaara was not stupid enough not to think that the Uchiha had not kept some form of tabs on his old master.

Besides, Suna intelligence said the Uchiha had passed through Grass, where all of this seemed originating, at least three times in the last three years. The other man knew something—something that he was not telling Konoha or Suna. Or something he told Konoha which Konoha did not tell Suna. _Kamis I don't have the patience for the mind-games of politics; however, I don't think Kakashi is the type of man to play mind-games, so I think Uchiha is knows more than he is letting on. But without any evidence of this, I cannot risk alienating him or Konoha by accusing of this._

Gaara's eyes flickered to where the Uchiha sunk down into the silvery water by the banks of the river. He knew the other man heard his approach because his pale back tense in the moonlight before fingers loosened and readied to create a few choice handsigns—the actions of a cornered animal. Gaara felt the same feeling at potential hostile contact, well any human contact other than his siblings and Naruto, really, but that didn't mean that he'd put up with it from Uchiha.

But Kankuro and Temari always told him the importance of interpreting body language, and his companion looked uncomfortable. According to Temari, the polite thing to do would be to make the other person feel more comfortable, but what Gaara was supposed to do this he did not know. This was why Gaara hated talking to people; it always involved to many uncertain variables. Uchiha Sasuke was one big uncertain variable. Ignoring voice in his head sounding just like Temari, Gaara squatted down next to where the Uchiha was sunk down under the water. He did not feel like waiting until the other man got clothed until he talked to him. He didn't particularly care whatever social norms Temari tried to beat into his head about nudity.

(Not that Gaara was exhibitionist, but ever since Gaara had become Kazekage, women seemed to be attempting to get naked around him with increasing frequency. Gaara did not know what to think of all the soft skin and curves other than an indifferent _hmm_, so he just ignored those women until they went away…or Temari dragged them away, telling him to call his ANBU guards if they did not go away. Gaara never did this since the women never attempted bodily harm and he did not care one way or another if a woman was naked in front of him…In the case of naked Uchiha Sasuke and, come to think of it, clothed Hyuga Neji, however, this indifference felt as if it was turning into something little bit more excited and on edge. Gaara made note of this and filed it away in his head of things to deal with later. He is too busy to thing about something as minor as electricity pulsing down as back and his body tensing to pounce and devour.)

One black eye flickered towards him. "Do you understand that I am naked?" When Gaara gave no response, Sasuke let out a huff and muttered, "You're worse than Suigestu…or Karin. At least they'd pretend to sneak in on me by accident." With still no response forthcoming from Gaara, Sasuke began to scowl and pull on his clothes. It was one thing to remain nude and magnificently unconcerned while ignoring Karin's advances or Suigestu's leering. It was quite another to be naked and covered in goosebumps under the bland, slightly confused gaze of Gaara.

Gaara was just in slight shock at the audacity of Sasuke to compare him to his Taka lackey from the Mist. If Gaara was going to be compared to any missing nin, at the very least it should be someone as infamous as Sasori of the Red Sands once was.

After Sasuke hastily pulled on all of his clothes, Gaara cleared his throat. It was time to get what he came here for: answers. He decided to be blunt. The Uchiha seemed to respect with bluntness, didn't he? All his past dealing with Gaara were what Kankuro termed as rude. Well, Gaara would be blunt—rude—back. It was actually a relief to say just what he thought instead of following all of the rituals social interaction seemed to involve.

"So tell me, how long have you known about Orochimaru's association with Kuno?"

Gaara was not expecting the responding expression on the Uchiha's face to be one of surprise.

_Well, at the very least, listening to what he says is going to be interesting. _


	6. dirty dancing

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of the characters; they belong to Masashi Kishimoto. I don't get any money from this. This is also AU-canon divergence of Sasori's and Sakura's fight; you'll just have to wait and find out how.**

**Warnings: No warnings. Some mentions of NaruHina and ShikaTema. **

"So tell me, how long have you known about Orochimaru's association with Kuno?" Gaara asked steadily.

This was not a good question (Sasuke long ago had determined that any question about Orochimaru or his time spent in Sound automatically qualified as a bad question); this was not a good day. All Sasuke had wanted to do was finish this forced trudge to Suna and be done with it. All Sasuke wanted to do was reach for the opium-laced drink he promised Naruto and Sakura he would not have. Baki kept looking at him sideways, reminding Sasuke of an Ibiki glaring out one-eyed through half-curtain mask. Sasuke could not remember if it was because he tried to kill Baki at some point or another. After thinking this thought after the tenth person or so, this thought had stopped to amuse Sasuke even in his darkest humors. Now whenever he thought it, he felt hollow as if his chest was going to collapse on him. Still, chest collapsing, he had to trudge on.

"Orochimaru and Kuno…I don't know anything about them working together in particular," Sasuke admitted half-heartedly. Technically, this was true, and Sasuke did not want to say anything else. Orochimaru had blown away soundless with the dust from his and Naruto's last fight. Though honor made him look for Orochimaru and report back to Hatake, when he had found no trace, Sasuke was content to leave it there. He did not want to think Orochimaru was still alive and doing the things he had done when he was Sasuke's teacher. If he was, then Sasuke knew all of this would be his fault. After all, it was Sasuke who had revived Orochimaru in the first place.

Gaara kept on glaring at him steadily. Sasuke scowled. Sakura said Kuno had taken genin; children were at risk. Sasuke hasn't sunk that low; he wouldn't risk a child's life just because he did not want to talk about something. He was not at the level of those Council of Elder fuckers who had a fourteen-year-old carry out their murders for them. No, Sasuke would never sink that low again if he could help it. Even though the name meant nothing now, he was still an Uchiha. His clan –family—had had honor once, even if it was so far back the stories did not remember it.

"After he disappeared after the Fourth War, I looked for him in Sound and all his other hideouts but found nothing other than whispers. Even when I asked Taka, my old team, they had had no contact with him. From what I can tell, there will be claims of a sighting of him in Grass, but when I get there, all trace of him or even the source of the rumor will be gone."

"And?" It was amazing how guilty the other man could make Sasuke feel with one word and a half-raised eyebrow.

"Kemuri, the village in Grass where the nuke-nin who attacked you were from, was a village he attacked. Grass was weak even before the war…now they're even weaker afterwards. If Orochimaru was going to be centered anywhere, it would be Grass. When he was building Sound, Orochimaru chose the Land of Rice Fields because it was a small nation with a collapsed government. None of the neighboring countries cared because all there was to Rice was starving children and failed crops, and all the starving children were glad for some order."

Sasuke paused, unused to talking so much to someone who was not one of the handful of people he allowed himself to care about on a personal level. He continued, "So Grass would probably be where Orochimaru would locate if he had the means to and if they did not hate him… but they do hate him. He has made a name for himself—not in a nice way—down there. Other than that, I don't know what Orochimaru would do with Kuno. Poison and sabotage are his specialties, but the taking your genin from Suna…Orochimaru never took children anyone would miss—just orphans and street urchins—he was pragmatic like that."

Sasuke bit back the bitter taste in his mouth. Children nobody would miss. Stupid foolish orphans who thought more killing would somehow make the killing of their family better. _Oh to be twelve and murderous again…I won't let him lead anyone else down that path. I might have gone down it anyways, but he sure as hell made it a lot kamisdamn easier_.

"Sending a note bragging about it seems like Orochimaru's style, though. Pragmatic, yes, but old fuck did like his monologues."

There, was that enough words? Fuck, Sasuke had always hated talking. He was never sure when to say something, so he usually just remained silent. If he was quiet and ignored the outside world long enough, it would just go away and he was left with himself.

Gaara tilted his head and jerked his chin. Sasuke hesitated before deciding to follow the other man. The water felt cold against his skin; there was no logical reason for him to stay there any longer. His muscles felt tight and his skin clammy. He might as well sleep warm in a tent than cold alone. But he could not sleep and he had promised Naruto that he would try to live; he had promised himself not to make Sakura cry again. So Sasuke would have no more drinks, no more opium-induced haze. The cramps and the clamminess would pass, but until then sleeping would be hard to come by. He would just stay tired.

Sasuke forced his mouth curve upwards into a smirk. If he was in the village, these were usually the times when he would meet Naruto at an empty training and fight until the bad feelings went away. Well, he had another body here—one that could be easily used as a sparring partner.

"So do you want to spar?"

His answer was a dagger of sand hurtling towards his head.

Sasuke was always more comfortable fighting someone than anything else. Some nights he was afraid to think what that meant about him, but most nights he didn't care. The dance of the fight was intoxicating, especially against a worthy opponent.

xxxxx

Naruto rested quiet staring at the stars, listening the sound of Hinata's breathing beside him. Shikamaru sat seated and smoking a cigarette on a rock ten feet away. It had been a long day. Despite trying to track the puppeteer who had attacked them, they could find no trace of him (or her, a voice in Naruto's head sounding much like Sakura told him). Naruto slowly rose, draping his jacket over Hinata before wandering over to Shikamaru.

"So you sent the letter to Kakashi-sensei. What do you the think the odds are that he actually reads it or he tosses it in a pile of all his porn?" Naruto asked.

Shikamaru grunted noncommittally. As Naruto's future advisor, he was being trained by spending more and more time in the Hokage Tower and more and more time trying to force Hatake to actually get work done. While Hatake was not as bad as the Godaime Hokage in regards to avoiding paperwork (which was not saying much), when he did do it, he was remarkably efficient.

Naruto took this at face value and decided to change the subject to something more interesting: Shikamaru's love life.

"So you and Temari?"

"Me and Temari what?"

Naruto smiled; Temari and Shikamaru were one of the couples of his generation that fell in love during the war despite the stench of blood from the battlefields. It was nice to see that someone could come together with another person to create future life in the face of all that death. Besides, he had been listening to enough of Shizune's and Kakashi's discussions on foreign affairs to know a marriage between the Kazekage's sister and the head of one of Konoha's leading clans could only be beneficial for the peace.

"I know what you're thinking," Shikamaru said, "Don't…I don't things will be like that. People are already saying that the peace is making Suna less powerful, too dependent upon Konoha and other villages; you see that with the coup Lady Kagome's husband planned saying the Gaara was making Suna weak. The Kazekage's seat is hereditary; if Temari and I start thinking about that while Gaara and Kankoro don't have heirs, they'll only see that as Konoha trying to increase its influence by worming its way into the Kazekage's family."

Naruto tilted his head, absorbing this. During the war, all he could think to keep going was simple: get Sasuke home and everything would be all right. Now Sasuke was home and things weren't all right. It wasn't the perfect ending the way Naruto imagined things would be when he was younger. Two villages that had fought each other less than ten years ago simply just couldn't _trust_; Sasuke simply couldn't get better, not trusting the world or even himself. Naruto could trust though, so Naruto would trust his friends as he had always done.

When he was twelve, Naruto had trusted Gaara, once seen as a monster, to become a better man; by the time Naruto was fifteen, Gaara was one of the best men Naruto knew. All Naruto had done was trusted and had faith in Gaara. Perhaps Sasuke could find something of himself in Gaara and follow his example to learn redemption was possible and he did not have to see himself as others did.

But Naruto also was not that fifteen-year-old anymore. He understood the need of watching problems that were occurring and planning to stop them before they turned to full-out catastrophes. Using Sasuke-metaphors as he often did in life, Naruto realized that if he had applied this philosophy to what he did when he was twelve, he would have noticed Sasuke's inner turmoil a lot sooner and knocked him out way before he ever thought of running off to Sound. Now, that would have saved a lot to trouble.

Biting his lip in determination, Naruto asked "What if Gaara or Kankoro were to marry a Wind Country girl and have children then? Would that help things?"

Shikamaru blew out a ring of smoke before beginning to answer the question. Times had changed since the days where the most intelligent conversation he and Naruto had was whether miso ramen was better than shoyu ramen.

xxxxxxx

Kakashi slumped down in his office chair, tossing the letter from Shikamaru up in the air before turning it to ash with a small fireball. The damned chair was too hard—he knew that it was supposed to be some kind of symbolism that a Hokage could never rest easy—but Kakashi thought that this was overkill. Even after a (Kakashi recognized the irony of the following statement) war for peace, enemies were still crawling out of the woodwork.

Only a complete idiot would think that being Hokage was an easy job. Even Naruto looked at him with squared shoulders and grim expression whenever anyone mentioned him being future Hokage these days.

According to letter just burned, Hinata, Naruto, and Shikmaru had been attacked on their way through Grass to Iwakagure. Grass—where all the whispers said Orochimaru's ghost roamed; Grass—where Kuno recruits seemed to haunt. Kuno was attacking Sand jonin with poisons that were formerly Orochimaru's signature. Now, an unknown nin—possibly Kuno's—was attacking Konoha jonin with Sasori of the Red Sands's old puppets. Kakashi's headache grew worse.

So trouble was brewing in Grass? The fact that four puppets attacked a peaceful emissary from the most powerful hidden village when there was nothing to gain from it meant that it was unlikely to be an act of any legitimate villages in the Alliance. Someone making use of Sasori of the Red Sands's old puppets was just another headache in the equation. Kakashi thought back to Sakura's mission report from her and Lady Chiyo's fight with Sasori; all the puppets had supposedly been destroyed after Sakura and Chiyo fled from the collapsing cave. But then again, when Kabuto had revived the majority of the Akatsuki, only Hidan and Sasori were left behind. Kakashi had assumed this was because Sasori couldn't be revived because he was more puppet than man…but what if it was because he was alive and buried under rock like Hidan…no, it was most likely he was dead.

Kakashi fought back a shudder. Kakashi had seen too many things to put any purposeful energy into jadedness, but not a lot of things could phase him anymore. The memory of falling rock on Obito's face was one of those few things, however. Being buried alive is not a fate Kakashi would wish one anyone. Kakashi sighed and reached a hand out to his stash of porn. Just three pages and then he could safely start to think of the best thing to do…

It was on his second page of porn that Kakashi realized, like he did most important realizations in life, that Sasori of the Red Sands used to be Orochimaru's partner in the old days of the Akatsuki. Kakashi knew that the unknown attacker was already making use of Sasori's puppets, but what if someone was using the puppet that used to be Sasori's body? In the aftermath of Gaara's abduction, no one had bothered to try to retrieve the body. It would not be below Orochimaru to use his old comrade's corpse. Actually, it was what would be expected of Orochimaru.

Kakashi thumbed the next page of his book. What would be the purpose of all of this though?

Almost reluctantly, Kakashi put down his book and began to write a letter to Neji. The traveling party to Suna would be passing through the Land of Rivers right now. At the very least, they should be warned to be on guard for any opponents similar to the ones that attacked Naruto. Besides, the Land of the Rivers was where Sasori of the Red Sands was buried. It would not be that far out of the way to ask Neji to investigate.

xxxxx

In terms of times for Neji, Baki, and two minor Sand councilman to walk in on Gaara and Sasuke sparring, any other moment would have been better. But since there were no gods, Gaara thought, they walked in the moment that they did. Well, Gaara supposed this was better than the time when he was six and walked in on his father getting a "kiss" on the crotch from his secretary. Uncle Yashamaru had eyes explained to unblinking eyes that it was because his father was a very busy man that had "adult" ways of managing stress.

That being said, the timing was still inopportune because Gaara wanted to continue the fight. Judging from the observers' faces, the scene could, Gaara supposed, be considered socially awkward even by his warped definition of the word. Simply put, he was straddling the Uchiha while trying to pin down pale hands that were sparking with lightning. Half of Gaaara's shirt may or may not have been burned off in the struggle before this. It was not his fault the other man was a pyromaniac.

When Uchiha had offered a spar, Gaara had accepted without hesitation; it was catharsis—being able to fight all out against another opponent who could equally match him and probably surpass him. Usually when Gaara fought, it was about survival. Training for future survival, teaching the younger generations and his troops so they could protect themselves, dirty fights to death. All of his past fights with the Uchiha had been just that—dirty fights to death, seeing glimpses of himself in the man trying to cut him down and blasting them back at him. It was different fighting the man as a comrade though. Not friendly exactly, but consuming. Gaara guessed he could see some of why Naruto liked to pit himself again and again against the Uchiha. The man didn't hold anything back, fighting like each blow was life and death, even when he was not trying to wound or kill.

Gaara looked up to glare at the men who had interrupted his dance-fight-spar with the Uchiha. His glare made Baki and the councilman look down. Only the Hyuga held his gaze.

Tongue darting out for just a moment to lick his lower lip, Neji cleared his throat, "I hope we aren't interrupting anything, Uchiha, Gaara-san." Uchiha felt warm beneath him. Gaara didn't want to move or think of anything else. _It feels like I have been stopped half-way through a fight and I just need to finish…something_, he thought.

Sasuke bucked his hips against Gaara's softly before Gaara slowly moved to get off him. Dark eyes deliberately lingered on Gaara's for a second before moving to Neji's. Sasuke began to as if to prowl towards the Hyuga before letting out a broken, barking laugh at something Gaara could not determine. Sasuke arched his back like a cat before smirking at all of the onlookers and sauntering off as he called over his shoulder, "And with that, I'll call it a night."

"Wait, Uchiha," Neji ordered, "This is something you'll want to hear too."

"Tell me in the morning. It's a long way back to the campsite, and I have to help an elderly grandmother cross the road, " was the only response as the Uchiha disappeared into the darkness. At this, the Hyuga seemed to grit his teeth slightly and struggle with his temper for a moment before regaining his composure.

"Well," Baki said, breaking the awkward silence, "at least that is the most cooperative that he has ever been. When he starts reading porn and showing up to things three hours late, I think we can say he's become Hatake fucking Kakashi."

Neji snorted, turned to Gaara, eyes glancing over his chest, and said, "I apologize for my comrade's behave—"

Gaara interrupted, "There is nothing to apologize for. It was just a friendly spar, nothing less, nothing more." Why did everyone seem to be making a big deal of something so trivial? They had better things to do.

The awkward silence reigned for a few more moments before the Hyuga simply handed him a letter. Their fingers brushed and Gaara felt a jolt of electricity similar to the one he felt when touching the Uchiha run down his spine. He continued to stare at the Hyuga instead of the paper in his hands.

Neji shifted and murmured, "This came from the Rokudaime just twenty minutes ago. I hate to separate from the group, but it should not take that long, and Kakashi-sama stresses that this is urgent."

Gaara read the sum of the letter quickly: Naruto's company attacked by Sasori's old puppets, Orochimaru—Sasori's old partner—at large, and the need to check the place that was Sasori's supposed resting place. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled in warning. He did not get to where he was today by ignoring his instincts.

"No," Gaara said. It would be dangerous if the Hyuga went there by himself.

"Excuse me?" Neji replied clipped and precise. "I have orders from my Hokage to investigate this. If Sasori's puppet or, more importantly, the puppet that is Sasori himself is being used to attack Konoha and its allies, it is imperative for me to find out."

"Take others; Kankoro, Baki maybe. If someone is truly using Sasori of the Red Sands' puppets, it concerns Suna since he a former Suna shinobi. It will need to be dealt with by Sand as well."

Neji nodded. "I will also take Haruno-san as she was the one who defeated him along with Lady Chiyo."

That was logical since the medic-nin was strong and would be guard to watch Neji's back, Gaara thought, unable to quiet the unease in his stomach. Something foul was prowling nearby in _his _territory, and he did not know what it was. Gaara did not like feeling uneasy.

"The rest of the group will continue to the edge of Sand, " Gaara ordered, "There we will visit the prison where Lady Kagome is being held, and Uchiha will help interrogate her. That should take approximately four days. Will you be able to meet us there at there by the end of that time?"

Neji nodded once more and disappeared in a flicker and shadow. Gaara tried to throw off the feeling that he should be following the brown-haired man, knowing where he was going. Something felt off, and Gaara did not want anyone under his protection (which the Leaf nin technically were since they were working with Sand currently; it was Gaara's duty to worry) wandering in dark shadows where dangers prowled.

Gaara scowled. He must be feeling out-of-sorts because of his spar with the Uchiha; the man usually had this effect on him. It was nothing other than a predatory reflex—a remainder of Shukaku. Gaara was not Shukaku; he was a man. He fought so long to be this, so he would remain like this and fight anything that would make him otherwise.

Face impassive, Gaara bite down on his tongue before walking to Baki and his council. There would be much to discuss.

* * *

Finally back home after study abroad! Classes start next week so I'll try to update at least one to two times a month at the very least next semester.


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